JAG Journeys: Hiking Dobongsan

Sabbath, June 9, was Jonathan's day to decide what to do. It being his birthday, I thought it only fair to let him choose how we should spend our last weekend off of our time in Korea. He picked hiking Dobongsan (Dobong Mountain). We researched how to get there on the subway and what peak to climb the evening before. Then that day, we were lazy in the morning and didn't arrive at the mountain until around 11 a.m. That was a bad choice as June was already sweltering, but we accepted the sweat dripping down our bodies and faces as our punishment. Dobongsan, within Bukhansan National Park, is one of the tallest mountains in Seoul with an elevation of 739.5 m (2,426 ft). It is also one of the most popular mountains to climb because of its proximity to Seoul and easy access from two subway stations.

Before reaching the park gates, we first had to maneuver through the maze of hiking stores and restaurants for 15 minutes. After grabbing an English map and asking a park ranger to point us to the peak, we set out. The first part of the trail was on an easy cobble-stone road that soon turned into a dirt path. Every so often we would come across stone stairs. About halfway up the mountain (or so we thought at the time) two Korean men passed us as we stopped to rest and rehydrate. We caught up to them again and one of the men spoke to us in very good English. He asked us all kinds of questions as we hiked up one section together, and told us that he hiked every weekend and had brought his friend along on the hike today. We gathered that the friend wasn't nearly as avid a hiker as he was, since he stopped often to let his friend rest. We continued stopping and catching up to each other for the rest of that part of the trail until we reached the ridge.

Then the REAL climb began as we came to an infinite wall of stone stairs reaching ever further up the mountain. I was ready to quit after just a few minutes of the tall stairs, but we stopped to eat part of our food and rested every few minutes from the steep climb. Somehow we managed to get past the stone stairs and then had to tackle metal stairs up the last portion. Once we reached the top of the metal stairs, we hauled ourselves up to the summit, pulling hand-over-hand with a hand railing up the very steep boulders. It was an incredibly hard hike with the incessant heat and tower of stairs, but the view from the top was, as always, amazing, although we were a little sad that the day was so hazy and Seoul was barely visible through the smog. After a well-earned rest and lots of pictures from the peak, we headed back down the mountain, going on a different trail, and finally resting our feet in a cool mountain stream before getting back to the city streets and myriad hiking stores. When we got home, we had celebratory cake for Jonathan's birthday (and for actually making it to the peak of Dobongsan). A splendid ending to a memorable day! :)

Map of the mountains we would be hiking in. Unfortunately we were unable to discover the actual peak we were aiming for.

Where we are headed

We discovered that if you somehow managed to roll out of bed stark naked and forget EVERYTHING,
you could completely suit up and gear up as you walked through the maze of shops to the trailhead.

Getting water from a rock

Lantern

Very rocky mountain

Looking back down at northeastern Seoul

Up into the hazy yonder...

Demoing the ropes for climbing which I didn't need

It was pretty steep and these railings were almost necessary at times, especially right at the top

At the top!

I attempted a 360 degree panorama but Photoshop didn't want to do it... I think I got maybe 180 degrees,
the rest was too featureless to find merge points (click to view larger)