A Year in Korea

by J. R. Robinson

Korea, ” The Land of the Morning Calm,” is probably one of the most interesting countries in the Far East. For the rock-climber and walker there is enough scope for the most ambitious.

I left England in December, 1954, bound for service first in Korea and then in Hong Kong. Early in January, 1955,1 arrived at the busy military post of Pusan and set foot on the peninsula of South Korea for the first time. First impressions were not favourable; the live war had not long been over, many of the population were homeless and the United Nations were beginning to settle down to rather an uneasy truce.

I found the atmosphere depressing; the town of Pusan, largely composed of shanties and makeshift houses, was dirty and squalid, the people were ill-fed, inadequately clothed and thoroughly demoralised. Most of them looked as if they would be lucky to survive the winter and many did not seem to care whether they did or not. The scenery added to the general feeling of depression; true, it was very hilly but the country, in spite of its ruggedness, was lacking in character, it was so bleak and desolate, and there was no vegetation to be seen.

I had arrived, as I was later to appreciate, at the worst possible time of the year, everything frozen solid. Even so, although the days were short and very cold, we did have quite a lot of bright blue sky and sunshine which, if not very warming to the body did at least unfreeze the spirit.

During the whole of the year that I was in Korea my unit formed part of the First Commonwealth Division and we were encamped at Sinjinpo, a few miles south of the 3 8th parallel, on the southern bank of the River Imjin.

The hills of Korea are not really high, the highest peak, Faik-Tu-San, ” White-capped Mountain,” is in North Korea on the Manchurian border and is just over 9,000 ft. No other peak is much above the 4000 ft. mark although the Diamond Mountains in North-east Korea have some summits approaching 5,000 ft. In the portion of the country now accessible to the Western Powers most of the hills can only boast a mere 3,000 ft. or less, but as most of the valley bottoms are only just above sea-level, the general effect is more rugged than one would expect.

The climbable rock is much weathered and eroded, due to a combination of extremes of temperature and torrential, if not excessive, rainfall.

In winter the countryside is brown and barren of all foliage but when spring eventually arrives the change is remarkable, vegetation which was apparently dead suddenly comes to life and the landscape becomes really beautiful. Spring flowers are everywhere in profusion, especially lovely are the azaleas, which cover most of the hillsides and there are many flowers well-known in England; the wild iris, the violet, the primrose and the crocus. The hills are a mass of colour and look magnificent in the slanting rays of the sun early in the morning or at sunset.

There are also many kinds of animals and birds, species as different as the deer and the Korean bear; British birds such as the Magpie, Thrush, Blackbird, Sparrow and Skylark are common while rarer are various strains of the Parrot family and the exquisite Golden Oriole. Game birds, Partridge, Quail, Pheasant, Francolin, Duck and Goose provide good sport during the season. Other wild life includes the most entrancing butterflies and moths, some with a wingspan of eight inches or more and colouring that defies description. There are many snakes but fortunately only three varieties are poisonous.

From the camp in Sinjinpo I was able to get about the country by jeep and during the spring and autumn I got in quite a lot of rock-chmbing. The restriction to spring and autumn is mainly due to the climate. During the winter it is too cold on the fingers for all but the shortest of pitches and snow and ice work is not possible owing to the scarcity of snow, so activities are confined to hill walking. The early summer brings heavy rainfall, on some days almost as many inches as hours. The rest of the summer is too hot for enjoyable chmbing, and if one did manage to summon up enough energy to be really active the irresistible temptation was to seek out the nearest mountain tarn and to spend the rest of the day there. Chmbing in summer is only really pleasant in the evenings, during the day the rocks get so hot as to be almost unbearable to climb on.

Many of the climbable faces are of ancient and very much eroded granite and some climbs need extensive gardening to make them reasonably safe. In much of the rock the strata slope in the wrong direction and this, combined with weathering, makes some of the faces quite smooth and almost devoid of any kind of hold.

I spent most of my climbing time in an area of granite peaks around Uijonbu, a large village about ten miles north-east of Seoul, the capital. An article in ” Mountaineering,” (Lonsdale Library) mentions this area and contains a photograph of Insupong, one of the peaks.

No summit in the district is higher than 2,500 ft. but there are at least two faces that give some 600 ft. of climbing. The routes vary from ‘ difficult’ to ‘ super severe ‘ and many of the pitches are very exposed. The area actually includes three main groups of peaks, Insupong, Tobong-San and Samak San, the last two being joined by a ridge. Tobong-San is of particular interest and has a large and very fine temple just below the summit. The main rock face has over 600 ft. of fine climbing. The rock is good, the vegetation sparse and the angle of the face about 70 degrees. There are three routes to the top; the time taken to complete each climb being about 3½ hours. On one part of the face we found many pitons, presumably left there by members of the Seoul climbing club, a flourishing organisation whose members I often met but never actually climbed with.

The area also contains some interesting problem boulders, some of them as much as 100 ft. or more in height, many of them seemed to be erratics.

Another feature of the hills of “The Land of the Morning Calm” is the many temples literally hewn out of the solid rock and perched in the most inaccessible places. The monks who serve in these remote eeries are most friendly and invariably make one very welcome. They provide the traveller with refreshment or a night’s lodging and expect no payment in return although it is usual to give some sort of a present in appreciation of their kindness. Hardly any of the monks that I met could speak any English but their descriptions of such local events as floods or storms were both eloquent and expressive.

I remember arriving at one of those little mountain retreats after a hard scramble and being greeted by a very excited priest waving of all things, a large and antiquated alarm clock. After a great deal of most amusing gesticulation we discovered that he wanted to know the correct time; he had forgotten to wind up his clock and it had stopped. We wondered why time should
be important in such an outpost, but concluded that they liked to have this one contact with the outside world.

Another temple incident, more amusing in retrospect than at the time, occurred one week-end when a friend and I were on a long hill walk. It had been raining ever since we left camp and by the evening we were feeling just a little depressed. As we were near to one of the temples which we knew quite well we decided to go and spend the night there. The monks took us in and installed us in one of their shrines. After we had been there for about two hours and were beginning to feel really warm and comfortable, a little priest entered the shrine and, sitting cross-legged on a low stool in the darkest corner, began to recite his prayers, whether solely for our benefit we never found out. We did not take much notice and quietly carried on with our conversation. Suddenly and without warning the priest reached up into the gloom above his head and struck the most deafening of bells. It was the most nerve-shattering of sounds and he continued to strike this bell every thirty seconds. So regular was his timing that it was possible to count the seconds before clasping hands to ears during the actual awful moment. I learnt that night that there is a limit to what a man can stand; we reached that limit. We packed our kit and fled into the darkness, even though it was still raining heavily.

It is a pity that the political situation in Korea at the present time makes access difficult for the normal visitor; I count myself lucky in having had the opportunity of seeing something of this charming but very little known country. Perhaps one day Korea will again be open to the casual tourist and then maybe these brief notes will give the climber or walker some ideas about where he should start.