Taebaek Mountain

 On Saturday we went to the Yongyeon cave to explore the inside of Korea. I have to admit that I was unimpressed by the cave. It was, like many things in Korea, beautified. There were pretty multicolored lights spotlighting the rock formations and stairs leading you to each particular place you were allowed to go. There was no exploration. I was unable to crawl over any rocks or into any smaller caves.

I was able to pose in funny ways though...which I guess was kewl. :)

 After the cave, we went to the Taebaek Snow Festival. We saw what Koreans refer to as "ice sculptures" but which are actually just large snow sculptures. They were pretty freakin' spectacular as they were all huge and very well carved.

 This was one of Jacob's favorites. Haha

 All of the sculptures were simply remarkable. I was amazed that they were able to carve shapes like this out of snow.
   

After we saw the snow sculptures, we went into this massive igloo to get hot chocolate. I will never joke about igloos being cold ever again. This thing was very warm and comfortable - I wanted to stay! But we had more important things to do...

 Like sledding! For five dollars we were able to sled down this little hill as much as we wanted. It was pretty entertaining. 

We hiked up the mountain in the Taebaek mountain range. The peak of the one we climbed is called Baekdudaegan. It was a rough hike - not as rough as Seoraksan - but a different kind of rough. It was snowy and we had to were crampons to keep our feet from slipping. The incline was rough at different parts. But...the hardest part was the cold.

It was so cold that the sweat actually froze on you as you can see from the picture. There were girls who had icicles in their hair. There was no point in bringing water on this trip because it was ice within 20 minutes of hiking. It took almost 2 hours to hike up & an hour to come back down. I've never been so cold in my life. However...

 
  
I WON!
That's right, I beat everyone to the top of the mountain and was able to celebrate my victory in peace and quiet. It was lovely and soul satisfying.








Eventually, Jacob made it up there. ^_^
All in all, it was a great hike and a wonderful experience. Will I be hiking up any more mountains in the middle of a Korea winter? Um...don't think so. But I've done it!