I was under the impression that the east-coast Gukto Jongju running from the Unification Observatory by the eastern end of the DMZ all the way down to Busan (presumably to the selfsame Nakdong River Barrage where the Four Rivers trail culminates) was 720 kilometers long. Based on my calculations, though, the trail is only 610 km long, making it 23 km shorter than the Four Rivers trail. I'm guessing this is because the path I plotted doesn't follow the actual trail all that precisely. Naver Map doesn't (yet) have a setting where you can type in "follow the official bike trail only," so I had to figure my way down to Busan on my own. I don't think I took too many shortcuts, but the result is still a disappointingly short trail. Check out my route for yourself and tell me where I went wrong. Meanwhile, I'm going to check some other sources that had been given to me by online acquaintances to see how I might re-plot the route so that it conforms more closely to the official Gukto Jongju.
One thing I know for sure, though: there really are so many motels, resort hotels, minbak, and pensions along the way that the need for camping will be zero. In other words: I can do the entire walk without once having to camp. Upshot: no backpack necessary, which means I'll be able to walk relatively fast each day. The average length of each segment is a bit under 24 km, which means each day—with only one or two exceptions—will be a fairly easy march. Right now, the walk is looking as though it'll take only 26 days. If I am able to re-plot the walk more properly so that it comes out closer to 720 km, that'll add another 4 or so days to the total walk. That's about what I'd been expecting, which is why my current calculation of the walk's distance comes as a surprise. I'll see about rechecking the distance over the next week or so. Meantime, feel free to leave comments.
6 comments:
No need for camping equipment will make a big difference. Surely you'll need something to carry water and other essentials in, though, right?
Yeah, and that's a good point. I'm going to jury-rig something that I can wear around my waist, maybe an array of different-sized pouches that can be attached to my belt. The purpose behind doing that would be to keep the weight off my shoulders so as not to compress my spine. As things stand, my cargo pants have those huge thigh pockets in which I can store up to two liters of water. As I discovered last year, though, the right-side pocket has a tendency to rip open when I sit down while carrying water that way. So I'll have to remember to remove the water bottles from the right-side pocket whenever I sit down. Last thing I need is another catastrophic wardrobe failure while I'm on the trail.
Perhaps a Batman-style utility belt is in order!
What's the ratio of pedestrian exclusive paths vs. regular roads? Sharing the road with cars will slow you down big time, me thinks. Hitting the road in the autumn again?
Daniel,
Ratio? I'm not sure, and I don't want to extrapolate from only two days' experience along the path. That said, I'm guessing that the east coast is built up along the entire coastline, which means plenty of towns, which in turn means plenty of roads, sidewalks, etc., that will be part of the overall path. I agree that sharing the road with cars will slow me down, and I hope I don't have to do that too often. There were stretches of my two-day reconnoiter during which I was off the streets and on a biker/walker-exclusive path, but I'd put the ratio of safe to dangerous paths at around 50%, give or take, for the first 60 km. Again, I don't want to extrapolate from that brief experience, and to that end, I'll be walking other randomly selected segments, this spring, just to get an idea of whether the path is the same all the way down.
Yes, I'd like to do this walk in the fall, as I talked about in my previous post. It'll be beautiful weather all the way down, I think.
Definitely agree on the weather. Might be a bit warm for that Andong Dam weekend excursion before summer (be sure to go before June). A 50 percent ratio of pedestrian only pathways to shared pathways sounds doable, if annoying at times. And then there will be fleeting glimpses of the ocean that make it all worthwhile! Viva la difference (or should we allude to Derrida's concept of différance? Speaking of which, I really enjoyed your writings on postmodernism over at the main blog!)
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