Tuesday, May 23, 2017

about that upcoming weekend walk

The route I'll be walking, this coming weekend, goes from the Sangpoong Bridge, northeast of Sangju City, down to the Nakdan Dam Certification Center. It's a good, healthy, 28-point-something-kilometer walk, which means about eight hours' hoofin' it (or "humpin' it," as the US soldiers said during the Vietnam War).

Near as I can figure, Sangju City has a bus terminal, so in theory, I can go there from Seoul by bus. Once I'm there, though, it's a long car ride to the Sangpoong Bridge, and then, when I reach the Nakdan Dam, I have to figure out how I'm getting back to Seoul. What I may try to do is arrange something with a Sangju City cabbie. I may end up paying him a large wad of cash to drop me off at the beginning of the route, then to pick me up at the very end. I also need to look at the bus-schedule charts and figure out (1) how early of a bus I can take down to Sangju City, and (2) how long the bus ride is. I don't fancy ending this walk late at night because of a late start, but arriving back in Seoul late at night is not a problem. Ideally, I'd like to end the hike in the afternoon, well before sunset.

The easiest solution would be to pull a Bruce Wayne and call my own personal chauffeur to drive me from Seoul to the Sangpoong Bridge, then have him or her wait eight hours for me to arrive at the Nakdan Dam. Ah, that'd be nice. But who in their right mind will pull into a parking lot and wait eight hours? (A cabbie would, at least, be free to go about his cab-driving all day long instead of waiting in one place for me.)

I'll refine these plans as the week progresses, but for the moment, taking the bus down, then cabbing, appears to be the best solution.

(This, by the way, is more of a thinking-out-loud post than a Walk Thoughts post, which is why it isn't labeled as such.)

UPDATE, 5/24: According to this site, the earliest bus from Seoul to Sangju City Terminal leaves at 7AM. The ride takes 2.5 hours, covering 194.7 kilometers. A cab ride to the bridge will be 30-40 minutes, which means starting the hike a bit after 10AM. Assuming I can go at a full 3 mph because I won't be encumbered by a full backpack (I'll have a smaller backpack with water in it), I can do the 18-mile walk in about six hours. That puts my arrival time at 4PM. If I've arranged something with my cabbie, then he'll meet me at Nakdong Dam at 4PM, get me back to Sangju City Terminal by 4:40, and I'll be on a bus at around 5PM, arriving in Seoul's Express Bus Terminal about 7:30. The subway (or cab) ride back will get me to my apartment sometime between 8PM and 8:30PM, depending on how sluggishly I'm moving.

So this is all doable.



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