Trail of the Lion King

I’m a little unsure why it’s taken me so long to get around to hiking up South Korea’s highest mountain. After all, I’ve been here nearly three years and have walked in most of the National and Provincial Parks.

I’ve even been to Jeju on three separate occasions, although I suppose they were primarily footballing trips. I was aware that I’m running out of time though and I’d have been disappointed to leave Korea without having made it to its highest point.

Jen and I had originally been booked up to travel to Jeju the weekend after this one but the possibility that I’d have to go to Oman then meant that it made sense to bring the trip forward a week. It’s taken me a long time to work out the system over here but I’ve finally twigged how air travel, and I suppose train travel, works in Korea. There are minimal penalties for changing or cancelling bookings, so whenever tickets go on sale they are snapped up immediately. The flight then remains fully booked until a few days before and at that point people make their minds up as to whether or not they want to travel. If you can book either very early or very late you should be able to get on even the most popular flights and trains.

It cost us a thousand won (sixty pence!) to change each sector of the flight. We could even have cancelled it after the flight had departed at no more cost than that. That’s AirBusan too, one of the budget airlines.

I knocked off from work mid-afternoon and we took the subway to Gimpo for our 6pm flight. There must be a bit of slack in the timetable as despite taking off fifteen minutes late we still managed to land at Jeju Airport fifteen minutes early. We took a taxi to the City Hall area as apparently that’s the part of town with plenty of bars and restaurants. There weren’t many motels though and it took a few minutes of wandering around before we found one with an available room.

Not quite The Ritz.

It’s probably one of the scruffier places that we’ve stayed in and if we’d noticed the hairs on the pillows earlier than we did then we’d have looked for somewhere else. It was cheap though at thirty thousand won a night and the owner couldn’t have been friendlier. He enthused over our hiking plans, gave us free energy drinks and took the time to warn us not to leave anything of value in the room as his cleaning staff would probably steal it.

The next morning we were up at five-thirty and out by just after six. I like that time of day, even when it’s dark and cold. If it’s quiet then it often reminds me of the short-lived paper round that I had as a kid and how I’d be the first person that day to leave footprints in the snow as I caught up with the latest sports news and checked out that day’s Page Three girl.

We took a taxi to the Seongpanak entrance to Hallasan National Park, arriving soon after half past six. The car park was already full and there were dozens of hikers milling around and making their last-minute preparations. The gate had been open since six o’clock and so I imagine that plenty of others were already on their way up the trail.

Still another half an hour or so to sunrise.

It was still dark as we set off, although the snow on the ground made it easier than it would have been to follow the path. Most of the Koreans had head torches, which was a shame. I much prefer to let my eyes adjust to the darkness and then enjoy it gradually getting lighter.

Seongpanak entrance is at 750m and so we had another 1,200m of ascent ahead of us in the 9.6 kilometres to the 1,950m Baeknokdam peak. That’s not too bad an overall gradient and there was a very helpful sign detailing exactly where the steeper sections were.

Seongpanak route up Hallasan.

To make life easier for the park rangers, Hallasan has cut-off times for various points along the trail. You are not allowed to start after 9am and you must reach the checkpoint at the Jindallaebat shelter no later than noon.

It was relatively quiet on the way up. There were a few smallish groups of hikers and the odd lone bloke or couple. The temperature had dropped to around -7C and whilst there was a steady light snowfall, there wasn’t much wind. We couldn’t see very far, but the trees around the path looked spectacular in the wintery conditions.

Winter Wonderland.

We reached the Jindallaebat shelter at 1,500m just before nine thirty, well inside the cut-off time. There were about forty hikers inside and we joined them for a while as I warmed up with a bowl of ramyun. We gained height quickly after that and as we reached 1,800m got above the treeline. On a clear day I’m told there are spectacular views over fields of pampas grass. We couldn’t see more than twenty yards in any direction though.

The wind had increased to the level where it was difficult to stay on our feet and the snow was pebbledashing my face. I could feel the ice forming in my hair, eyebrows and beard. It was just like the death zone at Cleethorpes seafront.

Four hours after setting off we reached the top. On a different day we’d have been able to see the crater and the lake, as it was we couldn’t see much more than the marker stone that signified the top. We posed for the obligatory photo and headed off back down again. The initial stages of the descent were a little tricky as we battled the wind and those people still on their way up. There were ropes and railings to hang on to though that made it easier than it would otherwise have been.

On the way down.

Once below 1,800m we could relax and take it easy along the forest trail. Or at least we could until we met the hikers coming upwards. At first it was still the odd small group. Before long though we were faced with an unbroken line of people trudging upwards. As we got further down the numbers swelled to the extent that they were walking two abreast.

Still single-file at this point.

As we approached the Jindallaebat shelter any pretence at a line had gone and it was just a swarm of people filling the entire track. There were still around ten minutes to go to the noon cut-off for making the ascent to the top and the rangers were attempting to manage the crowd with loudhailers.

As we reached twelve o’clock there were still long queues for ramyun inside the shelter. Surely people wouldn’t risk being sent back for the sake of a pot noodle?

Hikers fighting their way through the final checkpoint.

We headed back down the hill and for the next hour or so we were still passing people on the way up. Either they were oblivious to the restriction or else they felt confident that it wouldn’t apply to them. It struck me as so Korean. There’s a deadline so lets push it to the absolute limit.

We made it to the Seongpanak entrance in two and a half hours and were able to get a taxi back into town. It wasn’t a particularly strenuous hike at all. The slog up Chiaksan a couple of weeks earlier had been a lot harder on my legs.

Hallasan is another one of those mountains that I’d like to do again sometime, if only to be able to take in the views from the top. The entrance opens at 5am in the summer and I reckon that an early start coupled with a midweek date would be the sensible way to avoid the crowds.

I’m keen to try to get out into the hills a bit more often and with the cold but dry weather conditions being so much more suited to hiking than those in the summer I decided to stay over in Wonju after a basketball game and hike the following day in the Chiaksan National Park. I’d been to Chiaksan before, in January 2011, and remembered it as being a decent day out.

Jen and I took a twenty minute taxi ride to the park entrance and by a quarter to nine we’d set off. You don’t have to walk for too long before you reach Guryongsa temple. We didn’t bother going for a nose around, but we did see the bloke in front bowing as he went past. He didn’t seem too fussy about what he bowed to though as a few moments later he seemed to be paying his respects to a bush.

Guryongsa Temple

The hike to the 1288m Birobong peak was fairly easy going for the first hour or so, although with snow on the ground there were a few slippery sections. Upon reaching the Seryeom waterfall we were given a choice of two trails.

Last time I took the Sadaribyeongchang route and so this time we went the other way along the Gyegokil trail. There was a very handy gradient guide which seemed to confirm that it didn’t really matter which way we went.

Equally steep.

Our route took us via a valley and for a lot of the way we could see and hear the people who had taken the ridge route. They had gained ground a lot quicker than we did, although all that meant really was that we would have it to do as we got closer to the top.

It seemed that far fewer people were taking the Gyegokil option and a lot of the snow was relatively undisturbed. Walking poles made it a lot easier to stay upright.

I was lagging behind at this point.

The temperature was a little below freezing. It wasn’t as cold as the last time I’d been to Chiaksan, but it was cold enough to have frozen most of the river that should have been flowing in the valley. We had to walk across ice a couple of times when the path briefly followed the water, but even though the water was still running below the surface it was solid enough to support us.

I was less sure that it would take my weight.

The highlight of the day for me was feeding some birds halfway up. We watched a bloke enticing them down from the trees to feed from his hand and by giving up half a cereal bar I was able to do the same.

I dare say there isn’t a great deal of food around when the snow is on the ground and five or six different birds took the opportunity to take food from me.

Just like Trafalgar Square used to be.

I’m no ornithologist, so haven’t the slightest idea of what birds they were. Tits probably. If I call them Korean tits I can almost certainly increase the blog traffic from the search engines. They were quite small Korean tits as opposed to big Korean tits. You might even call them perky Korean tits.

It was fun feeding them and I’d have quite happily given up the rest of my lunch if we’d had the time to stand around whilst they ate it.

A different one.

As we got higher the snow got thicker and there were sections where we had to haul ourselves up using ropes and railings. Four hours after setting off we reached the top. It was busy, with far more people appearing to have taken the Sadribyeongchang route. The views were good though, the various ridges that disappeared into the distance looking a lot more interesting without their usual covering of foliage.

Chiaksan is the place where that fella built three big cairns at the top fifty years ago. Pointless but impressive.

You can see two of them here, the third was behind me.

Getting back down afterwards was tricky, even with spikes and poles. The ropes helped a lot, but couldn’t prevent a few slips. It took us two hours to get back to the waterfall and then another hour to reach the car park. There weren’t any taxis waiting but we managed to get a bus within fifteen minutes or so. They look as if they run quite frequently until late in the evening and the one that we caught had us at Wonju railway station in about half an hour. Unfortunately all the trains were fully booked and so we had to take at taxi to the bus station where it was easy enough to get a seat on a bus back to Seoul.

Bus timetable at Guryongsa car park.

It wasn’t a long hike in terms of distance, maybe six kilometres each way car park to car park, but it gained enough height to make it hard work in the snow. There are other routes that go on from the Birobong peak to the other side of the park and I reckon that with an early start and good weather it would be possible to hike from one side to the other.

I doubt we’ll get around to it, but then again I hadn’t expected to return to Chiaksan at all, so you never know.

I don’t have much of an interest in Korean politics other than, as with everywhere else,  the general wish that the left will do better than the right. What I do have an interest in though is getting a day off work for the day of the Presidential election. As I don’t have a vote, it leaves me free to spend the day doing something else.

Jen and I had planned on hiking in Sobaeksan National Park last summer, but once we got there it turned out to be too hot and we settled for a wander around the caves instead. Winter is better for hiking though, or at least it is for me and so I thought we could give it another go.

I nipped out of work early the evening before and we caught the 7.10pm mugungwha train from Cheongnyangi to Danyang. Cheongnyangi is a station that took me a while to discover. Previously I’d only been checking options from the main stations of Seoul and Yongsan, but leaving from the smaller Cheongnyangi terminus meant that we could get to Danyang on the Tuesday evening and then get an early start the next day. The journey takes around an hour and a quarter and costs about eleven thousand won.

It didn’t look as if there were any hotels near the out-of-town Danyang railway station and so we took a taxi into town and found a room in a hotel across the road from the bus terminal. It was the same place that we’d stayed at in the summer, although I think they charged more than thirty thousand won last time we were there.

It didn’t quite work out as planned the next morning as, possibly due to the previous night’s wine consumption, the early start turned into a late one. It was already mid-morning when we got into a taxi. The driver suggested that we should go to the Eoulgok park entrance and we took his advice. He dropped us off twenty minutes later with a warning that we should hike quickly in order to be able to complete the route before dark.

Sobaeksan map

Our intention had been to hike up to the 1439m Birobong peak. It’s only 5.1km each way but has an estimated hiking time of six hours. The route starts at around 400m in height and looks to have a fairly even gradient gaining a couple of hundred metres in altitude every kilometre. It was hard going in places with a mixture of fresh snow and old ice and without spikes it wouldn’t have been possible to have got beyond the first twenty yards.

It’s all forest tracks.

We didn’t see too many other people all morning, possibly because they will have set out much earlier than we did. There were some impressive sections of frozen river though and in the places where the water was still running ice resembling jellyfish had formed around the stones that broke the surface.

Two hours in, we’d hiked 2.5 kilometres and got up to 940m. With another 2.6km still to do and another 500m of ascent it became apparent that we weren’t going to reach the top. Jen’s feet and legs were just about numb with the cold and I was feeling the effects of the previous night’s over-indulgence. It wasn’t a difficult decision to call it a day and head back down.

We made the reverse journey in an hour and a half and were fortunate enough to see a bus waiting at the bottom.

For the bus aficionados.

I don’t know how often the buses run to Danyang but it seemed a rare enough occurence for kids to stare and wave as it drove past. Everyone on it, bar us, seemed to know each other and each new arrival was given a cheery welcome as they got on.

Despite not getting to the top it was still a decent day out, three and a half hours in the hills beats a day sat at my desk every time. It’s a pity that the elections only take place every five years.