I'll be honest, I'm not much of a hiker. Having grown up in Florida where the tallest "mountain" is 312 feet (95 meters) high, I can't say I had much experience with hiking.
So of course, one of the things I was super excited about when I first came to Korea were the mountains.
Seoraksan Mt. (설악산) 1,708 meters.
...well that's what we wanted to do, but apparently its an overnight hike and there were no more reservations because we suck at planning in advance....so we hiked a different mountain in the same national park lol
More information about Seoraksan National Park can be found here:
(http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=264211)
Seoraksan is located in Sokcho, a city about 3 hours away from Seoul. One of the great things about Korea is the public transportation system. So thankfully, getting there was as easy as buying an express bus ticket. The mountain is located inside of a national park, so there is a small admissions fee of 3,500 WON ($3 USD).
Near the entrance, you can find giant maps of the whole park that look like this:
I would recommend taking a quick snap of the map for future reference, or picking up one of the pamphlets from the tourist information center. This park is BIG. I mean HUGE. If you don't know where you're going....well....you wont get lost, but you'll be walking for a long, long, long time in the wrong direction!
Oh, and of course we decided to go in the middle of winter!!
This national park is full of beautiful temples and Buddha statues as well. I don't think I've ever been to a more picturesque site.
The hike that we decided on would take about 4 hours to reach the peak. Let me remind you again, this is my FIRST time hiking. Ever.
The trail is a mixture of rock stairs and man made stairs. The bottom of the mountain is pretty easy. I would say the first hour going up was a piece of cake. But it was pretty much....uphill....from there (I don't think downhill works in this scenario lol).
I think about every hour there was a rest stop with bathrooms and stores where you could buy food and water. I wasn't expecting there to be actual bathrooms to be honest. I thought I would be visiting some very dirty porta potties. But nope...this is 5 star hiking at its best lol.
My parka came off real quick. It was freezing, but I was sweating like there's no tomorrow. There's nothing like hiking to make you realize how out of shape you are!
But the burning calves and red face were worth it after we reached the peak. The view from the top was amazing. I don't think that pictures do it justice at all.
OH, and don't worry if you didn't bring alcohol. You can buy some from the little old grandfathers who hiked the mountain (much faster than I) and set up shop.
Going down the mountain took about 2 more hours. So we spent a good 6 or 7 hours hiking. For my first time ever on a mountain, I'd say I did well. So don't be afraid to give hiking a try my friends. It's worth the pain.
