South Korean Rain: A Hiker Intro

The rain is a constant tap tap tapping drizzle

and I am huddled on the bottom level of Plumorchard Gap Shelter, savoring and talking about overpriced cheese bought in a German-themed tourist trap town

and I am on the crowded porch of Upper Goose Pond Cabin, wringing out my gaitors and listening to the caretaker rattle off what seems like four dozen rules while I search for the tinest bit of free railing to hang my soaked belongings

and I am taking a late morning with my group in the shelter at Speck Pond, feeling delightfully and horribly lazy while watching the weekenders and other thrus slosh puddles on their way back to the trail

And I am not on the Appalachian Trail anymore. Six months have passed since I summitted Katahdin. I am not even in the US. I am in South Korean, up a mountain, living at a Theravada Buddhist monestary. However, there are similarities. My room is not much bigger than my trail tent¹. I’m also fairly sure my floor mattress is thinner than my Nemo Switchback closed cell foam pad. And the rain, of course, can sound the same anywhere on earth.

Sometimes the trail comes up in conversation

‘Have I told you,’ I might say to another international volunteer upon meeting them for the first time, ‘what I was doing half a year ago?’

‘No, I just met you. What were you doing?’

‘I hiked. I was a hiker.’

‘???’

‘Long trail. Long! Lots of mountains. 2200 miles’

‘???’

‘Oh, right…more than, uh, 3000 kilometers’

‘???’

‘Just tell me I’m a very strong and interesting person please.’

‘I think perhaps you should go meditate more. Maybe work on your english too.’²

Sometimes I think about the trail, and things related to it

There is a road that winds up the mountain past the monastery. A trail branches off the road and ascends to the top, stretching across the ridge. On this trail there is a tree with a double white blaze. It catches me off guard the first time I see it. This is the first one I’ve seen since I left the trail. I run my hand over the cold bark. ‘Huh, and here I was pretty sure I was blue blazing,’ I think.

The South Korean portion of the AT 

Thru-hiking and Nibbana

 “If you meditate anna panna sati enough,’ a sunim³ explains to a table of us during a morning tea session, ‘the Buddha say you reach nibbana. I do not reach nibbana yet, so I do not know what is like, but I do know if you meditate enough, you develop so much love…you love yourself so much you don’t need or want anything from world or other people. And not wanting anything from them allows you to love them as much as you love yourself.’ What she says makes me think of the way I felt after I finished the AT, if only for some time. I look downwards, grasping my small tea cup in both hands. It warms my fingertips. The steam rises.

Tea time

Can you reach nibbana by thru-hiking? I don’t know, since, like the sunim, I am not an enlightened being. What I do know is that walking, if done without distraction for long periods of time, charts you on a similar pathway as a consistent seated meditation practice. I may expand on this in a future post, but it is beyond the scope of this one.

About the guy writing the words

Which reminds me – Hi, I’m Celery. I got my trail name on (you guessed it) the Appalachian Trail last year. It was my first thru-hike, but I did come into it with some backingpacking experience – 500+ miles on a seasonal trail crew in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area over a decade ago. 

Celery

I am a hiker of average ability.⁴ This is my first blog. I hope to write some interesting and/or entertaining things for you, and I would be thrilled with myself I stick with it for the entire trail. I also want to see how cheaply I can reasonably do this hike, as the average cost for a PCT thru is getting a bit eyewatering and, perhaps, discouraging for some prospective hikers.

I plan to start my NOBO thru-hike of the PCT in early May. I’ve been sitting on a cushion long enough – it’s time to start walking again. 

¹To be fair, it was a large tent by thruhiking standards – a Durston X-mid 2.

²This is a composite conversation, edited for comedic purposes. Some parts of it only happened in my head.

³Term for a Korean buddhist monk or nun

⁴Among hikers who have completed a 2000+ mile thru hike