Peak practice

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Striking skeletal shapes of Korean pae (pear) trees awaiting spring form the background on our four-hour yomp through the farmland south of Wonju. We eventually reached a couple of dragon-topped stone totems either side of the road, marking the entrance to the National Baegwoonsan Natural Rain Forest. Beyond are our closest mountains, Baegunsan and Keunbaramgolsan, the latter still topped with snow from a month ago. I'd love to tell you we hiked on, even further south, and off our map, reached ol' Golsam's shining peak by nightfall, and planted our Midtown South flag in exhausted triumph. Sorry to disappoint. (I was imagining the story at the bottom of page 4 of Saturday's New York Times: American woman in green Pumas and Briton wearing Adidas (one sneaker minus a lace) and a black leather jacket found barely alive nowhere near the summit of obscure South Korean hill. Neither carried a compass, the words North Face were found nowhere on their clothing. And they had the wrong map.)