Jotunheim

This is reposted content from a photo album I shared on Facebook in November, so apologies to those who've been waiting for an actual update. This is meant for posterity and for the benefit of those who don't have me on Facebook. These photos actually come from two consecutive weekends - the first time I loaded up my mp3 player with some proper foresty black metal (Kuilu's "Haudalla/Virta", Burzum's "Hvis lyset tar oss", Wolves in the Throne Room's "Two Hunters", Moonsorrow's "Verisäkeet", Blood Red Fog's "Harvest" and Urfaust's "Der freiwillige Bettler" for those who care about those sorts of things) and headed out to the mountain alone, intent on finding the summit. I found *a* peak but it turned out not to be the true top of the mountain, so I returned the following weekend with my friend and we did find the real top of the mountain. That second trip was a relief as I would have felt stupid never having gone to the proper top of the tallest mountain in the area, but it was that first trip, with the beautiful foliage and excellent music, that was the real treat for me. Anyway...

The weather was sunny and the fall colors were in full swing, so I went back out to Gakwonsa Buddhist Temple on the outskirts of the city to go for a hike, listen to some tunes and pretend that I'm a photographer.

Some repeat angles from last time, I know, but I couldn't resist with the beautiful foliage in the background of some of these familiar scenes. I also hiked to the top of one of the mountains behind the temple and saw some new sights, and played around more with the macro and panorama settings on my phone.

Ah, they got rid of those silly floating things on the lake. Fall colors are looking good so far.

Many steps.

Prayer lanterns, this time in Autumnovision.

Incense. The wonderful smell of it wafted up the entire mountainside and I was catching whiffs even walking the ridge later.

The panorama function's a bit grainy, but I can at least pretend to be David Orbock.

The temple complex looks just as beautiful as I could have imagined with the fall foliage all around it.

Those strange piles of stone again.

Don't forget to look up!

The climb up to the mountain ridge was grueling, but I had this buddha to watch over me.

Peeks of the city.

Once you get to the ridge, the hike becomes much more manageable and of course beautiful.

The other path looked promising, but I headed this way instead on the first weekend. Of course, the actual summit was down the other path. Oh well!

I will lay down my bones among the rocks and roots.

Near the top, now.

Panorama from the top of the burial site.

Cheonan, from the east. In the far distance through the haze you can see Pentaport, which is near the KTX station at the southwest corner of the city and is the tallest building in Cheonan (and among the tallest in Korea).

Panorama facing the city.

The other direction is a little less tame.

Panorama of the other side of the mountain.

Summit marker. Turns out the true summit is about 220m higher than this one. Not breathtaking-high, but the shape of the mountains makes it very dramatic.

One last look at the city before I head back down into it.

Spring on the mountainside that has been domesticated a bit.

I found a different path back down to the temple that had thousands of these stone stairs carved into he mountain in switchbacks instead of the twisting mountain goat paths that I took to get up there in the first place.

A bigger, more organized pile of stone.

Are these glued together, or simply balanced that way? No way was I going to find out.

When I got back to the temple compound, it was well and truly Golden Hour.

Couldn't resist another shot of the Buddha in that light.

...or taking another panorama of the area.

Didn't see these before.

The artist has truly captured the beauty of the area's mountains.

That murky green pond is stunning at sundown.

To the left you can see the peak I had found on the previous weekend's hike. I'm at about the same height here, with a couple hundred more vertical meters to go before I get to the real summit.

The true peak lies this way.

The view from the true top of the mountain, this time at about 580 meters instead of the 340 meters of the other peak. Out in the distance in the center of the city there's sort of an island mountain - this is the small mountain park behind my apartment that I hike regularly and have posted pictures from before. I thought some of the views from there were nice, but they're totally dwarfed by the spectacular view of Cheonan from the summit of Taejosan.