Hiking in Jirisan National Park (Where Are We – South Korea 7)

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As I wrote in our last update we returned to the magnificent Baekdu Daegan, literally meaning “White-head Great Ridge” with 4 days of hiking in Jirisan National Park and 7 days north of the park, including traversing Deogyu-san National Park.

The Baekdu Daegan Mountain Range

While the Baekdu Daegan is not a particularly high mountain range – most certainly not compared to the Himalayas and the Andes – it is characterized by steep trails leading across most of Korea’s highest peaks and many sacred mountains.

Only once did we follow a waterway, when hiking up to Korea’s highest peak on the mainland, in Jirisan Park (Cheonwangbong). Fortunately, we did come across a number of water sources where we could fill our Platypus water bags, which quickly ran dry in daily increasing temperatures. In fact the sources of Korea’s main rivers are all along the Baekdu Daegan.

Here’s an interesting observation. The Koreans are dressed to a tee from sturdy hiking boots to fancy outdoor clothing including gloves and hats, and are equipped with proper walking sticks, backpacks that carry smaller, insulated bags to keep food fresh (oh, the bliss when we passed a group of picnicking hikers who offered us a chunk of ice-cold watermelon!).

The odd one here is carrying water. No Camelbak or Platypus, but those cheap water bottles from the supermarket (and thus creating and carrying lots of waste).

It’s not that they only drink bottled water; we see them fill up at water sources. We haven’t unraveled this mystery in their gear yet. The Koreans we show our Platypus are immediately interested though, so there is hope.

Korea’s Beautiful People

I had read the magic phrase, “Baegdu Daegan provides”, in blog posts and our guidebook (Baekdu Daegan Trail: Hiking Korea’s Mountain Spinefind the beautiful, colorful and inspiring book here, a new one will be published in the autumn of 2017) and we found this to be true. Not only when in need of water did we come across a water source, the hospitality of Koreans living on or near the trail continuously amazed us.

Jun Young and Baek, who live on the Gwaebang-ryeong (ryeong = pass), allowed us to leave our Land Cruiser on their terrain for the duration of our hike. On our return welcomed us with meals and offered us to use their shower and washing machine.

Sharing meals with Jun Young and Baek.
Mountain spirit poles in front of Baek and Jun Young’s home.

Bang Sam Sun, in Yeowon-jae, gave us cucumbers and capsicums, which provided a welcome fresh bite to our otherwise boring Ramen noodle soups.

When the owner of a small restaurant near Saemogi-jae noticed I had one good walking stick but also walked with a branch stick (found in the forest on a particularly slippery stretch). She took the latter, threw it away, and give me a proper one. It was most likely left behind by another hiker but still good and very helpful for the days ahead.

The owner of a restaurant just near the entrance of Deogyu-san National Park let us use his shower and gave us kimchi and cucumber salad to go with our evening meal of noodles that we cooked in the jeongja next to the parking lot.

Travel Guides for South Korea

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Insight Guides – South Korea

DK Eyewitness Travel Guides – Top 10 Seoul

Lonely Planet Travel Guides – South Korea

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On one of our last days, when I was utterly exhausted, Sun Eh Kang and her son Dong Jin Paik took us in. They fed us great meals in their restaurant, allowed us to camp on their premises and – oh bliss after a week on the trail in 30+ degrees Celsius – a shower!

Another interesting observation is on showers – another enigma, really. Some Koreans don’t have an actual shower but will ladle water out of a bucket to rinse with. This is common in other Asian countries as well.

But here, some bathrooms do have a shower head most don’t have a holder on the wall (even though the bathroom may be big enough). As a result you have to hold the shower head above your head. On one occassion there was a holder but if I turned on the shower it would spray water on the mirror, the sink, the toilet and shelf with toiletries; there was no space for me to actually stand underneath it. Any Korean who can shed a light on this way of showering?

Read More: Hiking on Yakushima Island

Cooking in shelters in national parks.
Oh my, what a meal can do to reinvigorate my spirits! Thanks Dong Jin Paik and Sun Eh Kang for taking care of us!

We met few other hikers, but when we did we exchanged a couple of words or shared a cup of coffee. All moments of interaction – no matter how short, often due to not sharing the language – contributed to a deeper understanding of the Korean culture and appreciating this country more and more.

In places people allowed us to set up our tent under jeongjas – a traditionally styled pavilion (some with open sides, some with floor-to-ceiling window panes) where often the village elderly meet to chat and gossip. We greatly appreciated this gesture as our tent is no longer waterproof and we were hiking in the rainy season (great timing, as usual…).

Read More: Why Hike the Baekdu-daegan Mountain Ridge?

We were lucky: on the one day of continuous rain we had waken up in a jeongja. Instead of getting soaked we sat warm and dry while reading each other parts of the inspiring story of Glen Heggstad’s world trip on his motorcycle, chronicled in One More Day Everywhere (find it here).

Our favorite phrase from this book as it is so true:

Obstacles are what we see when we lose sight of our goals.

Recommended Books on Hiking

(click on the images to look inside)

Wild by Nature: From Siberia to Australia, Three Years Alone in the Wilderness on Foot

Just a Little Run Around the World: 5 Years, 3 Packs of Wolves and 53 Pairs of Shoes

Tracks, by Robyn Davidson

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Magic of Baegdu Daegan

Apart from people, views and nature continuously brought smiles on our faces.

We had a ‘raspberry day’ where we stumbled on bush after bush full with sweet, little raspberries. They helped us climb the tough and steep trail to Gonam-san.

One a couple of days our attention was constantly drawn to an incredible variety of mushrooms in all sizes and colors. It was stunning! When hiking you are – at one point in time – bound to dream about food, and, as a result, we spotted mushrooms reminiscent of a type of crusty Dutch bread (tijgerbol), or of Coen’s perfect crème brulée, or in the shape and color of French galettes (type of pancake).

Oh, and did I mention the mind-blowing views?

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Hard Work on the Trail

Clearly we had more than enough distractions from the actual walking, from putting of one foot in front of the other. We stopped often, and Coen took many photos. We thoroughly loved being here, far from the digital and ‘civilized’ world, hidden in forest, enveloped by silence, the twittering of birds and humming of bees and dragonflies (blissfully few mosquitoes).

Yet there was no denying. The hiking was tough. We constantly needed to focus on where to put our feet and walking sticks, concentrating on how to best balance our bodies to scramble across boulders or get down slippery trails. Either the trails were steep and/or we had to hack our way through thick, entangled overgrowth – the latter drove me utterly nuts!

We had to work hard for each kilometer. While we were lucky to have very little rain while actually hiking, we walked long stretches in clouds that soaked us nonetheless. The humidity increased daily and temperatures rose as we’re about to reach Korea’s hottest time of the year. Yesterday it was 35 degrees Celsius at an altitude of 350 meters.

The weather and especially the stretches through entangled overgrowth (“While not rainforest, during the rainy season Korea’s vegetation grows just as fast,” one hiker commented) eventually wore us down. So, wise as we are, ha, we have decided to take a break from the Baekdu Daegan. We will return in a couple of weeks when temperatures and humidity will be on their return.

Read More: Our Favorite Hiking Gear – After two Thru-Hikes

Exhausted but happy – our last lunch break in the forest before returning to the ‘civilized’ world.

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18 thoughts on “Hiking in Jirisan National Park (Where Are We – South Korea 7)”

  1. Hi, Karin & Coen, I would recommend you to go Jeju island. You can ship your car with you and there are lots of easy trecking course. If it’s fist time, I believe it’ll be one of best choice.

    Reply
    • Chaewan, but isn’t it incredibly busy right now at Jeju Island? We understood that the coming two weeks about 50 million Koreans are on vacation?… Wouldn’t it be better to go there, say, in October?

      Reply
      • Yes, you know better than me. It’s not a good time. Next two week will ne most busy vacation season. Everywhere will be crowded with people. Instead of doing something, have a good rest to comback to BDDG. I’ll continue trecking with slow pace. Best regards and appreciate for great photos and article.

        Reply
  2. I wish I’m there too!!!
    How about check out South-East side of Korea
    Choong-chung & Joen-La do
    They have many NPs. land and sea
    Specially Joen-la do is famous for delicacy food.
    then you can take ferry from Mokpo or Jindo to Jeju
    Because of your spiration, I am planing an overland to South America from US.
    Thank you & hope all the best for your journey!

    What is your next destination?

    Reply
    • Hi Yong Yoo, I’m going to check out the destinations you mention. Thanks for sharing! So you’re going overlanding too! Great. We know of a Korean couple who’ll be leaving in 2 months to do the same.

      Reply
  3. I can’t believe you were finding raspberries and mushrooms everywhere! The views from atop the ridgeline are stunning! I really wish we had time to squeeze in a hike in Jirisan before we left! Have you been to Seoraksan? That’s actually our favorite national park in Korea yet! There are also some pretty beaches nearby too!

    Reply
    • Hey Megan, our introduction to hiking in Korea in fact was in Seoraksan (see our previous blog). I think that thus far we found that the most stunning place in Korea due to its ruggedness. We also camped at the nearby Sokcho beach and Hwajinpo beach. How much longer are you in Korea? We’re on our way to Seoul – still time to meet?

      Reply
  4. Hi, Mr. Karin. I saw your car parked near my home. What a stunning car! As I became curious, I searched the Internet, read some posts about your travel. So cool! I envy you. Why don’t you go to Ulleung-do? You can hike in there. The weather is cooler than Seoul.

    Reply
  5. Hoi zo te zien hebben jullie het nog steeds goed naar de zin in de wijde wereld.Wat een prachtige foto’s van Korea.Ik ben nu een sinds een jaar met vervroegd pensioen dus heb meer tijd om jullie nieuwsbrieven te lezen.Wij hebben elkaar ontmoet in India tijdens de hulp actie na de Tsunami. Op mijn web site staan nog een aantal foto’s van jullie verblijf daar.
    Met vriendelijke groeten,Henk Zieleman voorheen Vidotrans.

    Reply
  6. Hallo lieve mensen, Ik heb de foto’s bekeken en dat itchy feeling waarover ik lees dat jullie bekruipt t.a.v. naar Japan gaan bekruipt mij t..v. reizen in het algemeen. Wat heerlijk dat jullie dit beleefd hebben. Het zal inderdaad wel afzien geweest zijn, bij tijden, maar de foto’s tonen een fantastische omgeving met grootse en miniprachtige beelden en fijne mensen om mee te maken. heel veel liefs, Willy

    Reply

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