it was 2:30 in the afternoon. the sun was blazing down on our shoulders, our bags were starting to feel a little heavier and our lunch was starting to weigh down our bellies and eyelids. we had yet to hike the most difficult part of the journey, bugaksan mountain.
bugaksan is the largest mountain that we hiked on this trail. it consisted of hundreds of stairs that cascaded down the mountain, large trees, young korean guards, the stone stacked wall to our left and barbed wire guarding the stone wall. it took us probably 45 minutes to an hour to climb up all the stairs and finally take a much needed breather on top of the city.
unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photographs while climbing the mountain, but we were able to take some on our descent.
this tree shows the bullet markings from the mini battle when north korea tried to assassinate the president.
luckily the city posted many of these signs for us to follow since much of the wall is missing in certain areas and it is very difficult to figure out where it meets back up.
we reached the third main gate. we took a short break to take a picture together, and by this time my knees were falling off my legs so i was very grateful.
descending from the mountain was refreshing. not only were we able to give our quads a break, but we were blessed with dirt trails that twirled between trees a good distance away from the city.
when we reached the bottom of the mountain is was 5pm and we had more city, more wall and more mountains to climb.
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