Bukhansan Mountain

Back in October 2007, before it got too cold, I went to Bukhansan Mountain with my Korean friend Seijoeng. Mountain climbing is a serious pastime here. The demographic is middle aged mostly. Many Koreans like to bring rice wine with them to drink at the top along with their snacks which often include dried squid (think beef jerky).


On our way up we were asked to take a photo for this group of men. I snuck a photo for myself as well.


This a what you see when going up the mountain in the late afternoon, as we did. Scores of people focused on coming down.



There are two paths we had a choice between as we went up. One went up to the top of Bukhansan and the other went to a shorter peak. We chose the shorter peak because it was already late and my friend was extremely winded. This is the portion of the trail just before you hit the lower peak that we chose to climb.


The view is really interesting. Here is a Korean man taking in the sight near the top.


Finally, at the top Koreans chatted and took photos.



Here are two photos of the same view, one wide and one zoomed in. I read that something like 75% of the Korean landscape is mountains. Space is limited so Koreans build things vertically rather than horizontally. They use all of the available space right up to the sides of the next mountain. I think that is cool.


Looking in another direction.


Seijeong and I at the top.


Bukhansan at sunset.

A great thing about going later in the afternoon was the chance to take photos of the mountain as the sun went down. We had actually decided to leave the peak before the sun went down, so I was thinking I would not get the chance to take such photos. But, as we came down a few minutes, an opening along the trail offered the view you see in this photo.

I enjoyed the trip thoroughly and intend to climb all the local mountains and eventually hit mountains across the country.