My legs are so sore from climbing Ice Valley in the Kaji Mountains outside of Ulsan. My right, big toe is bruised under the toenail. I have a blister on the bottom of my right foot. My ankles have blisters. My knees are achy. I've been outdone by a 63 year old man who hikes every week. This last trek was the most difficult of the five I've been on, a 1,200 meter climb heavy in the rocks. The climb is like scaling a big pile of rocks, every step carefully over-calculated by me because I have so much fear with bad knees and weak ankles. I was the slow poke, the creepy crawly worm, who turned the five hour hike into eight hours.
There is really a lot to learn in mountain climbing, how to balance on a steep incline or decline, how to endure the slow pace of rugged stepping. My companions were so wonderful. Yang Hie, a fourteen year veteran of the ridges and peaks coaxed me at every step, "Ellen, it's getting dark. The tigers and bears might come out." "Aren't you hungry?" as dinner awaited us at 7 pm.
Yang Hie, who I met through my student and her son Mike, is really a wonderful person. She is so cute. She plays so much with Mike. Mike calls her a "hooligan." She calls him a "very bad boy." Yang Hie slips and falls down in the snow and Mike says, "The Champion!!" I enjoy watching the relationship. The light-hearted fun helps me endure the pain of pounding legs over and over again, up a hill, down a hill. That's what it was like. I had so much pain, but I had to just forget the pain. I had to move forward not knowing what terrain lie ahead or how long the trail went.
Most of the time Yang Hie stayed with me at Mike's request. But rather than linger, she would stay back a little and ask me questions like, "What's another word for 'worry?'" I'd say, "fret." She'd say, "When I am in the mountains, all my worries disappear." I'd say, "When I am in Korea, all my worries disappear." Then before I knew it she would be up ahead with the rest of the gang out of my sight. She see-sawed back and forth. Most of the down-hill paths were completely icy. I walked along the edges. The last hour of the hike we walked in the dark with a half moon at twelve o'clock straight overhead to guide us.