Climbing over a rocky mountain

On Saturday, Avalon held its initiation rites for new teachers. (If I were any more sore today, I might be tempted to call it hazing, but that would just be the bitter buildup of acid in my muscles talking). At the ungodly hour of 10, those of us added last quarter and those of us new this quarter met at the school building and loaded into the bus that was to take us to our hiking destination.

Korea is a mountainous country, and it has been very lovely to see all that contoured scenery around the city.* The mountain we came to was so steep, our bus gave out and we walked the paved road up to where most people start. That paved road was nearly a sixty-degree angle (1/3 pi? Math people, help me out here), and it took us on a scenic tour of a nearby subsistence farm which chose that morning to fertilize.

Our hike was not off to an auspicious start, but at least it was not raining, as had been forecast. In fact, it was sunny and toasty, at 60-some-odd degrees, and most people shucked off their outer sweatshirt layers. (Our director and vice director were dressed like we were going to church, in button-down shirts and khakis which remained pristine all the way up and down again. I think it a strong possibility that they were actually specially designed hiking robots. Robots do not sweat).

The trail wound up and around the mountain, with a few stopping points and courteously provided stretching apparati. We started on a paved road, then moved to something more resembling a dirt road, still very wide and well-packed, but without a concrete layer. Then it was up through the trees, on something that was barely discernible as a path (indeed, if I hadn't been following people, I might not have known it was there at all) and was so steep it was more like wall-walking. (I may or may not have been singing the Spiderman theme song to myself. No one will ever know!) That led us to a high ridge with a better-defined, much narrower path, that left no room for error lest we be forced to invoke the dreaded "tail over teakettle" expression. Around gnarled trees and over the rocks of the ridge's spine we clomb (IT'S A WORD!) up to the very top, where there was a little pavilion.

As we went along, our little school of climbing fish wove in and out of itself, and I got to talk to several different people. Not just my campus, but the downstairs school and the other levels, including the English Library, were represented, and it was nice to get to know names and faces.

During the ascent, the weather slowly crept in around us. At first, it was a hazy softening of the contours below, which made for nice, watercolor-like photos (which I will get from someone who took them and post). It got progressively darker and windier as we hopped down the far side like a herd of gouty goats (it was a steep, very rocky trail down). We just beat the rain to the restaurant at the bottom of the trail, and got to sit and eat duck while it spattered the windows. We bonded over our shared grodiness.

I'm quite glad we did it, actually, despite the desperate need for a shower that followed.

*Seeing, it appears, is my preferred method of interaction with mountains, or so my knees have been informing me. I lived in the Midwest for four years before coming here. For those not aware, the Midwest is flat. Compared to Korea, the Midwest is flatter than the space between stars, where at least there is quantum fluctuation.