Restoring the Yeongnam-daero would certainly require building entirely new pathways (hopefully for both walking and bicycling) that would parallel or bypass current highways, buildings & etc — with all the real-estate complications, it may not be possible at all. But it would absolutely be a far better large-scale construction project for President Lee to undertake than his dumb SuperCanal idea!

Anyhow, it was only the shortest section of the road through Tsumago (the highlight) between bus/railway termini. Took the train from Nagoya to Nakatsugawa, then a bus to Magome. Set off in mid-afternoon, late June, and settled into the minbak at dusk…I wasn’t walking briskly, as I was taking in all the sites. Maybe about 3 hours’ walking over 7 km? Lots of fascinating little hamlets, farmhouses, rice fields, shrines, etc. en route—even a mountain pass (though obviously negligible)! Then it was max half an hour to Tsumago the next morning, and thence about an hour or two by foot to the train station at Nagiso (4 km from the minbak), and back via the Chuo (中央; cf. “Jungang”) mainline to Nagoya.

The highway was one of the two routes between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto (the other being the Tokaido), traversed by the poet par excellence Matsuo Basho, and the Kiso Valley I passed through was the setting of the watershed Japanese novel Yoake Mae (Before the Dawn), a novel of the social changes brought about by the Meiji Restoration.

I too would love to see some of Korea’s historic highways gussied up and packaged in a similar fashion. The Yeongnamdaero (嶺南大路; the one you mentioned) would be a start. Restoration or reconstruction of some of the old stage posts would be a bonus. The problem, of course, would be where the historic road is covered by a highway (national hwy #3, most likely, for the most part); wouldn’t make for very interesting walking.

My one experience of real “backwoods” hiking in East Asia was actually in Japan, back in the summer of ‘97. I hiked the Nakasendo (中山道) from Magome (northeast of Nagoya) through the Kiso Valley. Woods, mountains, small farms…just gorgeous. It was getting late, so I had to chance it at what I thought was a minbak…and was. A great dinner of sanchae and fish, a hot bath, the roaring water of the stream…then on to the old post town of Tsumago the next day.

It was the wonderful memory of that journey that motivated me to do Mungyeong Saejae a few years ago, although being a shorter trail and in a provincial park, it was less of the rural, other-worldly experience, although the autumn views in Mungyeong were of course much more spectacular!

> They’re already at Sangju!? Wow.

Actually, that means they are about six days behind the original schedule — due to the bad weather of course, and to carefully checking out the cultural sites along the way. Now that the weather is getting good nationwide, they might make up some of the lost time, but then again might not if they continue to investigate many nearby temples, shrines and etc near the trail.

This, i would say, is one reason why it’s significant that they are the first non-Koreans to make this great trek — just that Koreans and foreigners “hike mountains” differently. Koreans value going as fast as they can, mostly ignoring whatever is along the way, walk right on past, only even admire the scenery when they break for a meal (unless they are professional photographers, of course). Foreigners like to take a look at that little temple or shrine or hanok-jip just below the ridge, and if they come across some living Shamanism they’ll stay for a while in fascination.

This is the major reason that although i hike Korean mountains so often, i very rarely do so together with groups of Koreans. It just gets too annoying when I want to stop by the Hermitage or monument and snap pictures and they are all “no, let’s go, come on, bali-bali!”. What’s most interesting to me is of no account, or even fearsome, to them. And this is a major reason that Roger and Andrew’s perspective on and reports on this nine-week trail will be something quite different from what we’ve previously gotten from Koreans doing it in six weeks…

That moonrise must have been gorgeous. Ah, Korea in the autumn….