The Last Korean Road Trip: Adventures in Songnisan National Park

With a year to spend in South Korea, our goal was to see as much of the country as possible. We planned our last big road trip for the major holiday week of Buddha’s birthday. Making several stops, we covered some well-known sites we hadn’t visited yet: Songnisan National Park, Andong Hahoe Folk Village, and the city of Busan.

As you will see, the weather unfortunately was not on our side. Indeed, this was hands-down the rainiest vacation we have ever taken, with significant rainfall on six out of seven days of traveling. Fortunately, a year of walking and hiking in all kinds of different weather was good training, and we carried on with our plans despite the regular soakings. In this post, we hike in misty Songnisan National Park, smack-dab in the middle of South Korea.

Songnisan National Park

Our first stop after leaving Seoul was Songnisan National Park, chosen for this trip partly because it was on the route between Seoul and Hahoe Village. It also seemed to have great hiking trails and views, two of our favorite things! Part of the Sobaek Mountain range, the park’s name means “Remote from the Ordinary World.” Though there aren’t many places to stay near Songnisan, there is a small town at the entrance of the park with some restaurants and lots of vendors selling local products.

Local produce for sale along the path to Beopjusa (Temple).

Though only 140km (<90 miles) from Seoul, the drive to the park took us much longer than expected thanks to the holiday traffic on the weekend leading up to Buddha’s birthday. This gave us a late start hiking and meant that we didn’t cover as much of the park as we’d hoped. However, our visit started out well enough with a sunny stroll through the Beopjusa (Temple) grounds.

Beopjusa (Temple) with Mireuk-bul (The Future Buddha) and the Palsang-jeon wooden pagoda.

Established in 553 AD, Beopjusa features the 33-meter-tall bronze Mireuk-bul (The Future Buddha), as well as the five-story-tall Palsang-jeon wooden pagoda. The pagoda has been designated a national treasure.

After passing through the temple grounds, we began the hike to Cheonhwangbong, the highest peak in Songnisan National Park (1058m, 3471 ft). Our plan was then to hike along the ridge trail for views of the park, a loop which we had read should take about 5 hours to complete.

On the increasingly steep ascent, we passed a colorful hermitage, Sanghwanam, made even more festive by the extra lotus lanterns in place for Buddha’s birthday. The views were dizzying and worth the climb. We also saw a few azaleas blooming, one of the features of Songnisan in the spring; we were too late in the season to see most of them, but at least we had some glimpses.

At this point in the hike, our day got a little sticky – literally sticky. It got really humid and warm, and the sun disappeared; little did we know, it would not reappear for days! The silver lining in these clouds was found in the quiet of the trail. Subpar weather meant we had the mountain mostly to ourselves.

View of Songnisan from Sanghwanam with the clouds rolling in.

We pressed on while the clouds rolled in. Most of the trail was steep and rocky but not technically difficult. There were a few small scrambles near the peak.

The good news: we did reach our first goal – Cheonhwangbong peak – without too much difficulty. The bad news: the estimates we had read of how long it would take to hike this peak were super optimistic. It took at least an hour longer than we’d anticipated to reach the top.

Incidentally, although we’d read beforehand that it would take 1.5-2 hours to reach Cheonhwangbong, the park maps estimate 3-3.5 hours. Though we beat the park’s estimate, it was too late in the day for us to continue hiking along the ridge as planned, so we took a shorter, steeper trail back to Beopjusa.

As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad that we didn’t have time to hike the ridge as the panoramic views weren’t exactly in evidence. We had to content ourselves with atmospheric mist and bright spring blooms. It was pretty, but we were disappointed to miss the views at the top.

We passed another quiet hermitage, Sanggoam, on the way back down the mountain. This peaceful place features a rock-carved Buddha dating from the Silla Dynasty.

Rocky paths took us through misty green forests and past streams and small waterfalls. Every now and then, a glimpse of the park’s famed views would peek through the clouds.

We finished this hike at a jog as it started to rain just as we were nearing Beopjusa. By the time we reached the car, it was getting dark and raining steadily.

Adventures from the Middle of Nowhere

It’s pretty hard in South Korea to be in the middle of nowhere. It’s a really densely populated country, and usually there is a sizeable city nearby. However, if there is a middle of nowhere to be found, I think we found it here. The area around Songnisan is truly rural.

In the rainy dark, we found the hotel at which we had a reservation, only to find that no one was at the front desk and that no one had left us a key to our room. Very fortunately, our reservation confirmation had a telephone number for the place, and when we called it the owner’s daughter was able to speak enough English to understand our plight. The hotel kindly sent an employee back to the hotel to help us check in, and we ended up having a pleasant stay in a very nice room.

Sadly, none of the restaurants near the hotel were open, so we drove 30 minutes back to the nearest small town to find food. After a day of hiking, we were ready to eat anything! It was Korean fast-food fried chicken to the rescue as we refueled our tired brains and limbs.