Awesome Autumn Adventures in Bukhansan National Park

Autumn leaves, rocky trails, AND a giant golden Buddha? Sign me up! Bukhansan National Park is unusual in that Bukhansan (the southernmost mountain within the park) is technically within the city of Seoul. You can reach much of the park utilizing only the Seoul subway system. Perhaps because of this accessibility within a major metropolitan area, Bukhansan made the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s “Most Visited National Park per Unit Area.” We added to those numbers, visiting twice during October to appreciate one of the park’s other distinctives: one of the best places in Seoul to see the changing leaves. Knowing it would be really busy, we stuck with a couple of smaller trails rather than heading to the popular peak courses. One park, two trails, two weeks apart, and you can watch the leaves change dramatically.

Guknyeong Temple Hike: Early October

Despite how cool this hike is, it evidently is relatively unknown among tourists, not having made it into any major guide books (unless it has been “discovered” more recently). However, this is where the blogosphere is very useful. We’re indebted to these bloggers who provided detailed instructions about how to hike this trail. We followed their instructions starting from Gupabal Station and ended up in the right place with no trouble. First, we disembarked from the subway with dozens of other hikers and headed up a main, paved trail. Of course, there was also a temple on the main trail. There’s always a temple!

When others continued to a peak course, though, we headed off onto a tiny, dirt path that didn’t look like a trail at all. I was grateful to previous bloggers who let us know that it was OK to take this path, as it really feels like you’re walking through a private backyard to access it. It was a relief to leave the crowded trail behind us!

Small signs along the way let us know that we were still heading towards our destination, Guknyeong Temple.

There were lots of places to leave the path and climb out onto wide, rocky clearings for views of the impressive granite peaks of Bukhansan. The leaves were just starting to change during the second week of October.

Suddenly, around a bend in the trail, we reached the Golden Buddha, “The Grand Buddha of Guknyeong.” A sign at the temple claims that at 24 meters tall, this statue is the largest seated figure of Buddha in East Asia. I guess we’ll have to take their word for it! Glass cases behind the Grand Buddha hold 10,000 smaller golden statues in a range of sizes.

The temple grounds also were beautiful on a sunny Autumn day, with cosmos and other Fall flowers blooming. Monks were chanting their mid-morning meditation in the main hall, adding to the peaceful atmosphere. We spent a long time wandering around the temple complex.

A steep, narrow path led us up past the temple and to a low peak, meeting up with a piece of the Seoul Fortress wall. Here we were reminded that we’d never really left Seoul!

We were supposed to continue on around this peak and down another trail. Unfortunately, I discovered here that I’d lost my sunglasses on the way up, so we decided to go back down the way we came. We didn’t find the sunglasses, but it wasn’t a hardship to pass through the temple grounds again.

Passing back down the main trail, we said goodbye to Bukhansan, but not for long…

You can see more photos of the Guknyeong Temple Hike on our Flickr page.

Sapaesan and Angol Valley Hike: Late October

Later in October, we were finally able to join Seoul International Hikers Club, which began meeting again after taking a break for COVID concerns in September. On our first meet-up, a group from the club invited us to hike with them the following day in Bukhansan. Keen to see how the leaves had changed over the two weeks since our last hike, we quickly agreed to join.

Rather than heading to one of the park’s main peaks, we hiked a smaller peak, Sapaesan, and then headed down into the Angol Valley for some spectacular autumn leaf-peeping. We arrived by subway at Hoeryong Station and met new friends from Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The trail up to Sapaesan was steep and rocky from the start. The real fun began when there were boulders to climb, sometimes just to continue the trail and sometimes for an extra viewpoint.

We appreciated being with a group on this trail, as sometimes it took a village to get everyone (namely me) up and over the largest boulders. Unlike the “mountain goat” chemist, I am not known for my stellar rock-climbing skills! It was much better when we reached the final summit and had some ropes and railings to help pull ourselves up.

I’m happy to report that we all reached the top and had a while to enjoy expansive views of the park and the city. Unfortunately, all that climbing up meant we had to climb back down! I learned my lesson on forgetting my hiking poles. Hopefully I won’t do that again!

Happily, the trail down into the Angol Valley had lots of autumn scenery to enjoy. When it comes to autumn leaves, what a difference two weeks makes…

In case you were concerned that we didn’t get to see any temples on this hike – not to worry. We ended the trail with a visit to a tiny temple, where the resident monk kindly shepherded us through his home so that we could see the inner courtyard.

Like all good hikes, we finished this one with an excellent dinner. The group enjoyed spicy Gamjatang, pork bone soup made with pork neck bones, potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, and tteok (rice cakes). Just the ticket after all that hiking and climbing!

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We are grateful to have found a “village” of fellow hikers here in Seoul and look forward to building these relationships with friends from all over the world. You can see more photos of our Sapaesan and Angol Valley Hike on our Flickr page.