Along the Trail of Korea’s Mountain Spirits
The New York Times - Travel - Sunday, December 2, 2012
THE titanium spork was a Christmas gift from my brother Gregory, a choice that seemed random at the time. I had no use for ultra-lightweight dual-use cutlery. But nine months later, almost 7,000 miles from my home in New York City and nearly catatonic with exhaustion, I was thankful for its lack of heft. Gregory; my husband, Joe; and I had been hiking for 12 hours while hoisting a 30-pound backpack over steep and slippery rock in a thick mist. After nightfall, headlamps fading, we spotted dots of light below us in the dark, and heard the eerie whoosh of a wind generator. We stumbled down to the Satgat-jae shelter, a basic cabin for hikers perched at over 4,200 feet in South Korea’s Deogyusan National Park. I unpacked my spork.
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Story by Elisabeth Eaves, photos by Joe Ray. Read it here in the New York Times.
