Over the hills and far away

Roger Shepherd, founder of HikeKorea.com and an honorary ambassador of travel for South Korea, explored the North’s portion of the Baekdu-Daegan at the end of October. He followed the range through the North Korean provinces of Gangwon, South Hamgyeong, South Pyeongan and North Pyeongan, accompanied by three members of the New Zealand-Korea Friendship Society.

Along the way, they covered 2,300 kilometres of country roads.

Shepherd is the co-author of “Baekdu Daegan Trail: Hiking Korea’s Mountain Spine”, covering the South’s portion of the range, but says that once he arrived in the North it became increasingly hard to identify it as a trail where people hike.

There were, however, traces of tracks left by animals and what Shepherd says may have been left by “the occasional local foraging visitor”.

“It’s safe to say that all the places I visited on the Baekdu-Daegan in this expedition were mainly unexplored by all humans, especially a foreign one, and required a lot of bushwhacking,” he says. 

“Outside of the more tourist inclined areas of Mount Geumgang and Ullim waterfalls, I’m quite sure I was the first foreigner to have visited these other places on the Baekdu-Daegan since at least the Korean War, if ever, and I did so simply because no one had asked to before.”

Because Shepherd intends to publish a photographic essay on the entire range, the North Koreans he met along the way reacted positively to his expedition.

Due to the absence of hiking trails in the mountains, those he met while in the North were generally found in the plateau villages of around the Baekdu-Daegan. If they were surprised to see a foreigner there, it did not stop them from treating him with a great deal of courtesy.

“It was easy for me to get on well with anyone I met in North Korea once they knew why I was there,” he said. “It almost seemed like it was a relief for them to meet a foreigner taking an actual genuine interest in their country outside of derogative politics or foreign aid hand-outs.”

The highlight of his trip was seeing the 1,300-metre Mount Duryu in South Hamgyeong Province.

“We stood and looked at this the mountain and although it appeared challenging, I had no issue in wanting to climb it,” he recalls

He encountered more resistance from his Friendship Society friends, especially when the local forestry guide described the mountain as having a “healthy” bear population.

His solution was to bring honey with them for the trip, but this left the problem of finding a route to the top of the mountain. Like any good pathfinder, though, they found a way around the problem.

“The next day we walked for five hours through a mountain valley containing farm houses, up a steep stream head and onto the Baekdu-Daegan ridge itself. Standing on that lonely peak, there was a strong sense of isolation in an already isolated land and we all felt unique. … It was a great feeling and for me the first real step into North Korea’s wilderness.”

Shepherd hopes to return to the North in May to complete the photographic project. The plan then is to visit Mount Baekdu and the Gaema Plateau in the very north of the peninsula for at least one month.

“It will be logistically more difficult in many ways due to the terrain,” he says. “I’m still hoping to acquire a major sponsor to assist with financing such an expensive operation.”

 

      Climb every mountain

Shepherd can be reached at www.HikeKorea.com or through e-mail at [email protected].