Post-161: At Yukship Pass

I reached Yukship Pass [육십령] on the afternoon of October 4th, following my detour to Nongae Shrine (post-160).

These passes are often tunneled to preserve the integrity of the ridge-trail above:

Like most of the southern half of the trail, Yukship Pass sits on a political boundary, dividing Gyeonsang Province from Jeolla Province. The two southern Korean regions have different accents and are in fact different in a lot of ways. It seems they’ve disliked each other for longer than Europeans have been Christian. (They had competing, rival states for a long time, until one of them was finally stamped out of existence by the other over a thousand years ago.)

I saw that there was a village on the Gyeongsang side of the pass, only a few hundred yards away from the border itself. Here’s what I want to know: Do the residents have “Gyeongsang accents”? Do they dislike Jeolla? I don’t know, but one indication of how strong the rivalry between Jeolla and Gyeongsang is (maybe), even at the border is this:

Read More

Neither side wanted the trail to only go through the other’s territory so they both carved out separate trail forks.

Along my hiking trip, I’ve always looked forward to reaching one of these semi-populated “passes”. It’s always good news when one is coming up. They have good facilities, food for sale, water. The guidebook promises the following:

The writers went on their trip in September to November 2007, six years ago now. When I passed by in October 2013, the big place they talked-up so much, on the western (Jeolla Province) side was closed completely. It was a big let-down for someone as hungry as I was at the time. The building seemed abandoned and was boarded up:

I loitered for a while around the jeongja (a large, shaded pavilion raised off the ground, which Koreans seem to use for many purposes including overnight camping — I’ve seen Koreans doing it several times and now done it myself once). The jeongja is to the right of the building above, overlooking the valley in Jangsu County. It was empty.

I was waiting for something to happen. The store I’d anticipated buying thousands-of-calories-worth of food from was dead and showed no signs of coming to life. Maybe I expected the lights to spontaneously come on. It was not to be. The only thing happening in the large, nearly-empty parking lot was that a middle-aged man was watching a dog running around. I got the idea that the man was “looking after” the closed store/restaurant. I think he was actually “just a guy”, though, using the place as a big dog park. I asked him if camping was allowed around there. He replied that it wasn’t. No store. No restaurant. No camping. No water. A big disappointment.

I made by way off to the eastern (Gyeongsang) side of the pass, where there was said to be another “huygeso” or rest-area (store, restaurant, and more). On my way to the tunnel and the other side stood a memorial. It was to the South Korean soldiers killed in the anti-communist-guerrilla campaign fought in this area during the Korean War:

(The government chose the Jeolla side for this memorial commemorating [in effect] the large-scale killings of pro-communist civilians, when those communist-sympathizers disproportionately came from Jeolla [as I understand it] — I’d speculate that this choice of location may be the handiwork of the Gyeongsang circle that ruled South Korea for thirty years beginning with General Park Chung-Hee in ’61 (whose daughter is now president).

These are thoughts that occur to me long after the fact. At the time I snapped the above picture, I was really hungry and out of food (except peanut butter and some “gorp”). I staggered on to the Gyeongsang side of the pass. On the Gyeongsang side, a smaller and decrepit-looking store/restaurant was (at least nominally) open for business:

I was so hungry.

I walked in, said hello, and clumsily asked “Is this a restaurant?” in my poor Korean. I really wasn’t sure whether it was a restaurant. I couldn’t see a menu anywhere. Maybe you just “had to know” what was on the menu.

Two middle-aged women, one very old woman, one middle-aged man, and one young man were inside. I soon got the feeling that all were related. Before long, this materialized on the table in front of me:

I’ve rarely had a meal with so many “side dishes” (banchan, 반찬) before. This one had six. At first, I thought the meal was entirely side dishes. Only about halfway through did I realize that the soup was the main dish. It had beef in it, I think. I ate it eagerly, having eaten little that day. After finishing  the food far too quickly, I stayed at the table and leafed through the guidebook a little, to know what was on the horizon next. It was about 4:00 PM, so two hours of good daylight left. 

I paid 6,000 Won ($5.50) for this meal. In the front, they have a small “store” area with snack foods, chips, cookies, lots of types of ramen, and other things like tuna cans. I bought pound-cake bread and crackers, total 4,000 Won. Off I went again into the forest:

I decided to make camp as soon as I found a good place. I found one and, still hungry, I had a second dinner of peanut butter slathered on my crackers and pound cake:

It hadn’t been windy at all that day. After night fell, though, the wind suddenly picked up. I was glad I was safe in my tent and not outside. The next day, the wind would still be there as I made my toward Halmi Peak (see post-155)….

[This was mostly written in a motel at Chupung Pass on October 16th and finished on October 25th in Jeomchon]