Mission Possible
“You have all the USA’s nukes pointed at you and you’re worried about a couple of serpents?” quips Tom Bodkin. It wasn’t the expected answer when asking about pit vipers, but Tom has eyes on the bigger picture. We’re mountain biking in North Korea —possibly the biggest bullseye on the planet— so snakes should be the least of my worries. And they are.
The snakes don’t show. Instead I’m woken by Harald: his teeth are chattering. “I need to get the stove lit,” he shivers. Last night we’d unrolled our mattresses in the lee of a cliff to escape the wind. Beneath this mere apology for a shelter, we played human Tetris, trying to squeeze seven people onto a tiny ribbon of dry ground, and Harald didn’t fit. He woke in a rain-drenched sleeping bag and now he needs warm tea. We all do. It took ten hours of herculean effort to reach our bivouac and a cold night in the rain wasn’t anyone’s plan.
Yesterday was spent tailing a local guide, Kim In-guk, up an impossibly steep mountainside. Kim’s pace defied both his 70 years of age and his baggy shell suit, and we
