To Finish or Not To Finish?

One of the bigger debates Chris and I have been having as we schlep our 16-kg packs up and down the ridge over and over again, with achy feet, while sweating off liters of water is this: are we having fun?

Of course we didn't engage in a through hike expecting it to be like hanging out on a beach Thailand. Chris and I engaged in plenty of what we would dub "Type II" fun - fun that happens afterwards. Things like bushwacking through alder and devil's club looking for snow, or skiing in the rain, or curling up in the public shelter at Camp Muir waiting for the sun to come up so you can ski down on bulletproof suncups. Kind of funny at the time, definately funny later on.

We've been trying to figure out what exactly brought us here to Korea to hike the Baekdu Daegan in the first place. What type of fun were we looking for? We both enjoy hiking, although the longest either of us have ever been out is about a week. We both wanted to see the more rural and mountainous areas of Korea. We are getting plenty of both. But our bags are heavy, it's hot, and we feel like we are making very slow progress - 140 km in thirteen days. If we were hiking the Appalachian Trail, it would take us over 8 months to complete it at that rate!

But this isn't the Applachian Trail - it's a crazy adventure of searching for water, trying to communicate in broken English and Korean, trying to figure out in a small supermarket what on earth you can possibly make for dinner with the goods in front of you, and of course it's hiking up and down, up and down. Plus, we're kind of wimpy northeners and 80 degrees with 85% humidity leaves us confused, sticky and addled. But for every one of those questionably "fun" moments, we've had so many amazing encounters I feel could only happen along the BDDG. Like the many rides strangers have offered us, or the funny scolding we get because my bag looks bigger than Chris's, or the kind offering of drinks, food and candy from many people we meet along the trail.

We've been struggling with our Type A personalities that for some reason feel the need to complete this ambiguous project we have started, but I think reason has won out and we have decided to be slow travellers, hiking as slowly as we need and taking as much time as we need to take it all in. Its likely that we won't finish hiking the Baekdu Daegan, but hopefully we'll have more fufilling memories and plenty of both Type I and Type II fun because of it.