Climbin' the biggest stuff

Climbed Mount Halla again yesterday. Tallest mountain in South Korea. I've been up 3 times before, but not up the Gwaneumsa trail. The three guys I went with were in great shape, so I was left huffing and baby-stepping in the rear for a lot of it - I still refuse to go the gym. There was one stretch of stairs for a solid hour. Hellish. Also checked out a sweet off-limits cave.
We...didn't quite get to the top. There's a checkpoint almost at the top where, if you're not there by noon they prevent you from going any further, for fear that you'll get stuck coming down the other side after dark. We were a bit late, and the guy came running out after us bitching. We went back to the checkpoint and milled about, and then, being rebels, made a run for it. We literally sprinted up the trail, but the guy came in hot after us. He grabbed one of our red-toqued number and restrained him with the help of ever-helpful Korean hikers. Fuckers! Then when we finally gave up and started back down, he started snapping pictures of us with his phone. G wasn't too happy about this, and got up in the guy's grill until he deleted the pics. A grand adventure. Was a good day for it. My legs are killing today, but that's how it goes.
I got a wicked charlie horse in my calf on the way down. It was nuts, my whole calf contracted into a hard little hockey puck. Kansas Wizzles had to perform an emergency massage to fix it. Oh, I sweet-talked a monk into giving us a ride after. I've got a way with monks.
We spotted some ROK Marines on maneuvers in the woods(see them?), and it reminded me of how much fun I used to have playing airsoft. Those were the days. Old school.