Urban Hiking Challenge on the Baegak Mountain Trail

Before we left the U.S. for South Korea, we told a group of friends that even with our 250-pound luggage weight limit, we were going to make room to pack our hiking boots. Even in COVID times, hiking is still open and (mostly) free. Well, it’s finally cool enough in Seoul to do some real hiking, and those boots are getting a workout!

Seoul City Wall

We prioritized hiking the Seoul City Wall (Hanyangdoseong) as a way to see as much as we can within the city. The 18.6 km-long wall originally was built in 1396 across the four mountains surrounding Seoul: Baegaksan, Naksan, Namsan and Inwangsan. Called Seoul Fortress Wall in the past because of its role in protecting the capital city against intruders, it has been maintained throughout its history and has been rebuilt numerous times. Currently, some sections are hike-able, and some barely exist anymore, the course disappearing into busy city streets.

We had already been able to see the downtown Dongdaemun Gate and a lower section of the wall in Seonggkwak Park, which leads to Ihwa Mural Village if you keep climbing. However, we were really looking forward to hiking some of the more mountainous trails.

Baegak Mountain Trail

The 4.7km Baegak Mountain Trail crosses Baegaksan, the highest of Seoul’s four inner mountains. We hiked from Changuimun Gate through Sukjeongmun Gate to Hyehwamun Gate, the trail you can see marked in black at the top of this map.

We began our hike at Changuimun Gate, which was destroyed in 1592 during one of Korea’s wars with Japan, and was reconstructed in 1741. It is one of the oldest surviving auxiliary gate towers. An impressive start to the hike!

Once we went through the gate, it turned out that the main feature from here to the summit is – stairs! Lots and lots and lots of stairs. My phone told me we climbed 126 flights on this day. Who needs a StairMaster when there are city trails like this one?

Happily, there are excellent views from said stairs, so stopping to take a look (and a breather) is completely acceptable. Of course, the higher you climb, the more expansive are the views of the surrounding mountains and the city below.

It would be nice to say that the summit of Baegaksan is really impressive, but that is not the case. The views on the way up and on the way down are much more exciting. When we finally reached the top of the stairs, our reward was this marker. Hmmm… it’s a good thing the rest of the trail is worth it!

There are times when one can understand more clearly that the Korean War has never really ended. The Baegak Mountain Trail re-opened in 2007 after being closed to the public for nearly 40 years due to the “January 21 incident.” On January 21, 1968, a 31-man unit of North Korean special forces nearly infiltrated the Blue House (the residence of the South Korean president) in an effort to assassinate President Park Chung-hee.

The plot was unsuccessful, and the North Korean troops fled to Baegaksan and Inwangsan. Eventually, all were captured or killed except for one man, who escaped back to North Korea. A pine tree along the trail bears the name “1.21 Incident Pine Tree” as 15 bullet holes mark the place of a firefight between South Korean and North Korean troops in 1968.

The government determined that Baegaksan’s proximity to the Blue House posed a security threat, and the mountain’s trail was closed for decades. It’s clear that this still is an active military zone. There are numerous signs along the trail that prohibit taking photographs in some areas given military outposts along the way.

There still are guards in some of the many towers along the wall, and we had to get special passes at a checkpoint to complete part of the hike. A few years ago, hikers were required to sign in and provide ID at the checkpoint. This is no longer the case, but you do still have to go through a turnstile and take a pass to continue along the trail.

All that climbing did finally lead us to the Sukjeongmun Gate, which is about a third of the way along the trail. The gate is lovely though admittedly not super historic, having been built in 1976. All things being relative, of course, in comparison to the wall that was built originally in 1396! (Do you like the historic fire extinguishers on the gate steps?) The awesome city and mountain views continued on the trail down from the gate. It unfortunately was a little hazy on this day, but you get the idea.

We have found the trails here to be very well marked, except at key points when they sometimes are, um – not. Here we took a wrong turn on the trail because it wasn’t clear to us which of the “down” trails to take. No harm was done, except for the extra 300 steps up we had to take after taking the wrong trail down and then needing to turn around. Not that anyone was counting, of course. We did reach a very nice viewpoint we otherwise would have missed. The sign labeled it “a location selected by Seoul for its scenic views.” So there you go – a serendipitous moment!

The hike did get a lot easier after that, taking us down much more gradually than it had taken us up. The path inside the wall was closed for construction at one point, but we were able to take a small path on the outside of the wall and continue down. From that angle, it was easier to see exactly how tall the walls are in some places.

From this point down, the wall runs along several villages that are residential areas. The most memorable of these is Bukjeong Village as the path along the wall looks right over into the neighborhood. The name originates from the from the Korean word, “bukjeok,” which means “crowded.” An apt name to be sure! I read that many of the tiled-roof houses were built in the 1960-70s, and so Korean dramas set in that time period sometimes are filmed here.

Shortly after leaving Bukjeong, the trail ends abruptly in the middle of another neighborhood, and it is necessary to hike along back streets through a residential area to reach the final gate.

Finally, one last piece of the trail re-emerges so that you can climb to the last stop on this piece of the wall: Hyehwamun Gate. Although this auxiliary gate originally was built along with the rest of the wall in 1396, it was demolished in 1928 and just rebuilt in 1994.

Pass through the gate, and just like that you’re over a mountain and back on a busy Seoul street. How’s that for urban hiking?

Want to see more photos of the Baegak Mountain Trail? You can view Peter’s Flickr album here.