Mountains and Mountains

Whenever we have a long weekend here in Korea, I try to get out of Daegu. For the June long weekend me and some friends decided to travel the distance to check out Seoraksan National Park, one of the most famous and beautiful places in Korea. We got out of Daegu early on Friday morning, cause we had heard various estimates on how long it would take us to get there - we expected anywhere between 4 and 9 hours. Well, the route we took was approximately 7 hours to get to the city of Sokcho, the closest city to the park. There were 4 places along the way where we would pick up other passengers. This was not the problem. The problem was the frequent rest stops that we took when we were only a short distance away from where we would have to stop anyways - that's backwards Korea for you. The length of the trip sucked, but the views were amazing. We drove along the eastern coast of the country for the entire time and saw some pretty great scenery. Day 1 was pretty much over once we found a motel, so we decided to do our hiking trips over the next 2 days.



Saturday was our long hike day. We got to the park and were welcomed by a gorgeous Buddah statue at the entrance. Then we joined the crowds of people hiking up to Heundeulbawi and Ulsanbawi. Heundeulbawi is a spherical rock they say that everyone in Korea has tried to push over the edge of the cliff that it stands on. My friend Mike and I tried, but only felt a slight movement when we used all of our muscle power.

A ways after this rock we found ourselves at the base of the dreaded 800 stairs up to the peak of Ulsanbawi. According to the legend, this rock came from the city of Ulsan in the south east of Korea. This rock traveled to be a representative of the city at the making of a mountain range further to the north. When Ulsanbawi arrived there was no more room, so he started the trek back down to the south. He stopped in the Seorak mountain area to have a sleep but decided to stay after seeing how beautiful the area was. This mountain is basically a 90 degree cliff face and without the man-made metal stairway you would have to strap on a harness and rock climb your way up (which we did see people doing). My nerves kicked during the first stretch up the stairs (we were very high up), especially when I thought about having to make our way back down. The staircase was very narrow, the mountain was very crowded, and I was surprised not to see anyone tumbling down the stairs after being taken out by a backpack or walking stick. It was a tough hike up the stairs, but the view at the top was definitely worth it!

On the way back down we stumbled upon a temple in the woods. Although now all temples look the same to me and the novelty of them has worn off, this temple had the most beautiful backdrop of mountains.
Sunday was our shorter and easier day. We started our day with a nice hike through the forest to see two different waterfalls. This hike was not very busy and at some points we felt like we were the only people there - very hard to ever have this feeling in Korea. Walking through the forest reminded me so much of Canada, and made me miss how beautiful and forested of a country we have. After the walk the cable car was calling our names. It was really nice to take the easy way up, even though we still had a bit of a hike to get to the peak of Gwongeumseong. The top of this mountain again was very busy. I found it really funny because Koreans are so concerned about the threat of mad cow disease from American beef, or the Avian Flu from chicken, but they were letting their very young children run around the top of a mountain like it was their backyard. And, as always slaves to fashion, there were many Korean women wearing, yes, you guessed it... high heels!