Bukhansan National Park Bukhansan National Park was the very first national park we visited way back in April 2016 while we were in South Korea for the first time on vacation. We showed up to the trailhead wearing casual shoes, shorts, and cotton T-shirts. We had no food or snacks, and very little water. We were totally unprepared, but still hiked to the top of Baegundae (836m). Our legs were so sore afterwards, we were peg-legging it the last 4 days of our trip. Now, 2.5 years later, while living and teaching in Korea, we had returned to conquer Baegundae again (and get a Bukhansan hiking map scarf). We had proper hiking boots, poles, and a backpack full of food and water. We were feeling a little sick and under the weather due to the relatively quick change in seasons and increased ragweed pollen. We were just happy to feel good enough to give this hike a try. We took a KTX train to Seoul station, transferred to the Metro line 4 (light-blue), then transferred to the Ui-Sinseol line and started the hike at the Bukhansan Ui station. We walked up through the hiking shops and passed the National Park information office heading towards Doseona temple. Before the temple we took the right-hand branch of the Y intersection and heading straight up into mountain. We continued to follow signs for Baegundae all the way to the summit. The trail carved its way straight up the mountain side and offered little relief. The mountain was full of weekend hikers enjoying the beautiful summer day. The last push to the summit is a steep climb up the exposed rock face that requires the use of fixed cable ropes. There is almost always a long line of people slowly and safely making their way up to the top. The view of the other parts of Bukhansan National Park and the vast city of Seoul stretching to the horizon is well worth the effort. About half way down the other side of the mountain, our sickness fatigue set in and we had to cut the planned hike short. We ended up taking a cut-through trail back to our starting point rather than dropping down a different end trail. One great thing about Bukhansan National Park is that nearly the whole area is easily accessible by metro trains and buses. This gives you the option of starting your hike at one end of the park and ending the hike at the other end and simply taking a bus or train back into town. Chiaksan National Park After feeling under the weather for a couple weeks, we were finally feeling a little better and excited to get outside and spend a short day in the mountains. We saw that Chiaksan National Park had a relatively short trail (11k round-trip) that started from a beautiful looking temple up to a tall summit that offered good views. After getting to the parking lot and packed up for the hike, we saw on the course map that there was actually a much longer loop that made a nice figure eight around the park. Our short hike turned into a 9.5hrs 29km epic day. We hiked well over 1,000 stairs, got an amazing 360 summit view, enjoyed some smooth fast trails, listened to a fast flowing mountain stream, and suffered from not bringing enough water. This park is great if you want to just do a short summit hike or do something much longer. Our hike started and ended at Guryongsa Temple. There is a large parking lot next to a large National Park Office, so the trailhead is easy to find. The trail starts out nice and easy and it makes its way up to the temple and through the Guryongso Valley. There was a small festival going on the same day we were there, but we knew nothing about it. We randomly found ourselves walking next to a Korean English teacher who explained that the festival was to celebrate the natural beauty and awe-inspiring tranquility of Seryeom Waterfall. There were dozens of people crowding the trail as we got closer to the majestic waterfall. We figured the waterfall was really worth seeing, so we scooted and bumped our way along the busy trail and soon found ourselves standing in front of just a normal looking smaller than average waterfall. I don’t even think we took a picture because we were so underwhelmed by it. So, don’t come all the way here just to see the waterfall, there are so many more spectacular things to see! Just after Seryeom Waterfall, the trail crosses a small rusty bridge and forks. The left trail is the more challenging one, but is the one we would recommend. It follows a ridgeline all the way up to the summit that offers wonderful peek-a-bo views and 1,000 stairs (literally) to conquer along the way. The other fork is rated at an easier level, but is still a steady climb up through the valley ending with a very steep boulder filled climb out of the bowl. This trail doesn’t offer any real good views and is much less memorable, and therefore is less traveled. Once you reach the summit at Birobong you will be greeted by a wonderful 360 view of Wonju city and see Chiaksan National Park stretching out into the distance. We had a clear sunny day and could see for miles. We enjoyed a few bites of trail snacks and few drinks of water before we made our way down towards Bugok Info Center. The 3.0K of down trail was buff dirt and nearly rock free and stair free. Every step seemed effortless. The soft dirt trail cushioned our feet. The tree coverage kept us cool. Our spirits were lifted and we reenergized. This kind of trail is very rare in Korean hiking, so when we got a good chunk of it, we enjoyed it. We took a right turn before going all the way to the Boguk Info Center and found ourselves paralleling a brimming, chatty mountain stream. We walked up stream for another 3.0K and saw a dozen or more stunning arrays of waterfalls, calm clear pools, and cascading forks in the stream as water flowed around rocks, fallen trees, and living trees. This was our favorite part of the hike and completely unexpected. Watch out for snakes slithering across the bamboo lined trail. We saw 3! We made our final turn after a short climb up and we parted ways with the stream. The next 3.5K is a somewhat dull rolling climb back up to Birobong. It was a nice trail with a mix of rock and stone steps and just steep dirt climbs. The tree coverage was nice so the afternoon sun didn’t bake us away, but there isn’t much to see other than some small views of Wonju and Birobong off in the distance. By this time we were basically out of water (because I, Casey, bring extra like I’ve done on every single other hike I’ve ever done in my life… not sure where my mind was as I was walking away from the car that morning) and we were 7hrs into the hike, so fatigue was starting to set in. We decided to skip going back to Birobong and go down the other trail that we didn’t hike up in the morning. This trail was awful! It was just a mess of large boulder rocks scattered all over the place. Every step we had to focused on where our foot would land and it was so hard to get into any normal cadence, so it was just brutally slow going and not a trail we wanted to be on after 8hrs of hiking. We made it down safely without any problems because we are badasses, but we were crying a little on the inside. Nevertheless, after making it back to the smooth lead-in trail and getting some water at a random trail-side vending machine, we knew the day was over and the hike had been a huge success! This was one of our longest and most endurance challenging hikes of the year, but we’d do it all over again if we got the chance. Wolchulsan National Park The day after our marvelous hike at Chiaksan National Park, we decided to hike Wolchulsan National Park. Out of all the national parks, Wolchulsan National Park is either our favorite national park or tied (with Seoraksan National Park) to be our number one rated national park in Korea. Words can’t even describe the beauty of this park. It was a pretty far drive down to this park. Once we got off the freeway, it actually looked pretty flat. I was pretty surprised by this since I knew we were within 15 miles of the park and I was expecting to see more mountains leading up to it. Then, we went around a bend in the road and BAM! Straight out of the ground was this amazing, beautiful, rocky mountain range. It was stunning! It reminded Casey and I of the Sandia Mountains in New Mexico. They had this gorgeous orange/pink hue and just jutted straight out of the ground. Even after the nine-hour hike in Chiaksan the day before, which resulted in 18 miles of hiking, we were beyond excited to start this hike! This hike was no joke! We started the hike just going straight up! There was a small temple on our way up that we stopped at to appreciate the view. Then we continued our climb up, up up! We climbed up boulders and stairs and finally we arrived at Cloud Bridge. Cloud Bridge is an awesome suspension bridge that connected two huge rocks. It is 52 meters long and 120 meters off the ground. It was super cool to walk across. The views were just stunning! There were green rice paddies and forested hills as far as the eyes could see! After way too many pictures, we decided to continue our hike. The ascent didn’t get any easier. Some of the staircases were actually a little scary, but really that didn’t matter. The farther we went up, the more gorgeous the views got. We had never seen such amazing rock formations and we just couldn’t get over the view of the valley! We finally made it to the point in our hike where we had to decide if we were going to do the small loop and stay on one side of the mountain…..or do the bigger loop and do both sides of the mountain. Even after our lengthy hike the day before, we just couldn’t get enough of this park and we easily made the decision to press onward and do the larger loop! We descended onto the back part of the mountain, which actually sported a super nice trail! It was really even and actually felt a lot like the trails we were used to back in Washington. We enjoyed the trail and before we knew it we were heading back up the mountain! We made it quickly to a ridgeline that led us straight to Cheonhwangbong Peak. The views were breathtaking, but man oh man were our legs starting to feel it! The hike down to the car provided more unforgettable views. By the time we made it back to our car we had hike another 7 miles (which insanely took us 6 hours..hey it was steep climbing!). But this hike was something that we would never forget! Jeju The weekend of September 15 and 16 was something that we had been excited about for a while. In order for us to complete our goal of visiting all 22 national parks in Korea, we had to go to the island of Jeju to climb the tallest mountain in the country. Hallasan proudly stands at 1,950 meters and has a spectacular view. The only problem we had with making it to this gorgeous island was our work schedule. We don’t get off work until 6:45 on Fridays, and that makes it impossible for us to get to the airport before the last flight. Sooooooo, we got a rental car Friday night, set our alarm clocks for 2:45 AM, raced out the door and made the 1.5-2 hours drive to Gimpo Airport to catch the 6:10 AM flight to Jeju. Now, Casey and I slept like crap the night before our flight. In addition, while living in Korea, Casey and I found out we had a severe allergy to ragweed, and during September and October there is ragweed EVERYWHERE in Korea. Casey and I coughed, sneezed, and had terrible stuffed up noses ALL THE TIME! And trying to fall asleep while you can’t stop coughing is impossible. We did end up getting some awesome cough syrup from our doctor so that helped take the edge off the coughing during the night. ANYWAY……… The flight to Jeju went by in a blink. Before we knew it, we had our rental car and we were driving to the trailhead to start our hike up Hallasan! I was on about two hours of sleep and Casey had at most four hours, but we were determined to hike this mountain! We started our hike around 9 AM on a foggy Saturday morning at the Gwaneumsa Parking Lot. Still the start of the hike was gorgeous and we enjoyed our quiet walk through the forest. We had to reach the Samgakbong checkpoint at 12:30 so we made sure to keep a decent pace at the beginning so we wouldn’t get turned around. We ended up making it to the checkpoint in like 2 hours, and by that time my allergies were killing me and I was super tired. My amazing, strong husband took my water from me so all I had to carry was myself. Awwww! That’s true love right there. :) We had another 2.7 kilometers to the top and just as we started our finally ascent the fog burned off and we were left with the beauty of Hallasan. How we got so lucky, I don’t know. But I am sure glad we did! The final climb was stair after stair after stair, but it was hard to focus on the stairs as we watched the fog burn off around the mountain. By the time we reached the top almost all the fog was gone. We say the spectacular crater at the top along with the crowds of people! I was quickly getting more and more tired so we snapped a few photos and started down the other side of the mountain. The climb down was actually really relaxed. We did the hike in the opposite direction of what most people do it in. We went up the “harder course” and down the smoother course. But after climbing 1,950 meters, we were stoked to have an “easy” hike down. When we finally made it to the Seongpanakparking lot we were both pooped but super stoked. We easily caught a cab that took us back to the Gwaneumsa parking lot. Sunday was amazing! We saw so much stuff in such a short period of time. We actually didn’t plan this itinerary (or really any itinerary for that matter), but everything nicely fell into place. We knew there were lots of things to see on Jeju from the TV show series Korea From Above, but we ran out of time to map all the places out, so we got lucky when we started to stumble across all the things we heard about on the TV show. The first thing we saw on our Sunday adventure was our one planned item. We started our Sunday adventure at Seongsan IIchulbong (Sunrise Peak). It’s this cone shaped piece of land that was formed 5,000 years ago from underwater volcanic eruptions. People try to see this amazing land formation during sunrise, but considering our lack of sleep on Friday night, we opted to see the peak around 9AM. I can see why people go during sunrise though, this piece of land sticks straight out of the ground and gives you an amazing view of the ocean. After a quick coffee stop we continued our car drive along the south side of the island and came across Jeongbang Waterfall. This waterfall was gorgeous. It is 23 meters tall and 10 meters wide. I also think I read somewhere that it is the only waterfall in Asia to fall into the ocean. How cool is that!? The next scenic spot we came across is called Jusangjeolliade. Here we saw the awesome hexagon shaped columns sticking straight out of the ocean. They were formed when Hallasan erupted long, long ago. Watching the waves crash down on them was mesmerizing! We could have watched them forever! After a quick lunch and a little more driving we came across Cheonjaeyeon Falls. This large park has a path that wanders around the area and shows off its three waterfalls. The first thing we came across was this gorgeous green/blue pond. We had never seen anything like it and we took our time taking pictures and just taking in the beauty of the area. Apparently, this was where the first waterfall was supposed to be, but during this time in the season it was not flowing. We were sad we didn’t get to see the first fall, but we were so impressed with the beauty of the blue/green pond we quickly got over it. We then walked further down the path where we got to see the second waterfall flowing strongly. It was impressive, but nothing like the fall that we had seen earlier that day. We then happened upon a HUGE bridge called Seonimgyo Bridge. This bridge has seven beautiful nymphs carved on the side. We took a few photos at the bridge and continued to the last waterfall before we returned to the car. We ended our day in Jeju with a quick stop at the OSULLOC Green Tea Fields to grab a green tea latte. It was of course delicious, and then we made the short drive to the airport. We caught a 6 or 6:30 flight back to the mainland, and then made the short drive back to Cheonan. Talk about a productive weekend! That's all for now! Here's EXO's new song called "Tempo"! Enjoy!
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