I've had a couple months to think over how I plan to proceed with my big walk this year. In theory, I've got as much time as I need to do as long of a walk as I want because I'll be doing the walk between contracts. My current contract ends on my birthday, i.e., August 31. I can, if I want, sign a new contract whose start date will be late October or early November. The window for my walk would be what it was over the previous two years: late September to late October.
But the time to do the walk isn't my main concern. The big question is: will I be going through with the east-coast walk, or will I switch to a different route? And the answer is: I do plan to go through with the east-coast walk. Having had the time to think about my late-December reconnoiter, I've come to the conclusion that I need to give the path more of a chance. I did that reconnoiter during the winter and in the middle of this pandemic, so it shouldn't be surprising that so many segments of the path had been closed down. Now, with the weather warming up, and with pandemic restrictions loosening (for the moment, anyway), I think I ought to go visit some other parts of the path and see whether it's really nothing but gloom and doom all the way down to Busan.
To that end, I need to finish up the plot of my course; at this point, I have the thing about three-fourths mapped out. I'm going to hit the office tomorrow, even though it's a holiday, just so I can take advantage of the two large monitors I have at work (at home, all I have is a little, cramped laptop). I think I can finish plotting the course in one final paroxysm of activity, and that's when I'll know what the total distance is, whether I need to camp (thus far, it's been motels and pensions all the way down the coast), and which segments I might want to visit for a second and third reconnoiter.
While I'm at it, I plan to do one other weekend walk before the summer heat sets in: a trek to the mighty Andong Dam, which looks very impressive and very much worth a visit (see for yourself). I tried mapping out a walk a year or so ago, and if I remember correctly, there's at least one long stretch where I might have to camp. But we'll see. I'm planning to re-map the walking route, but this time, I'm going to use the dam as a starting point so as to find motels, etc., more easily—a bit like how they tell you to solve a maze by starting at the goal and working your way outward to the maze's entrance.
So that's the plan. It's subject to change, of course, but generally speaking, once I've committed to a big project, I see it through. More news later, when I have something new to report.
