Walking to School Uphill Both Ways: Welcome to Gwanaksan

If you’re looking for a campus to keep you fit while you walk to classes, Seoul National University is the place for you! Completed in 1975, the Gwanak Main Campus is built at the base of Gwanak Mountain (Gwanaksan), and as such includes a dizzying number of hills and stairs. The university is so integrated with the mountain that we finished this hike by staggering right onto campus – after viewing it from above at the summit.

In order to end up at the university, we started our hike on the other side of the mountain, in the city of Gwacheon (just south of Seoul).

Since it was such a gorgeous day for hiking, we only had to follow the crowds to know which way to go, although the the trail head was also very well marked. Gwanaksan has many different trail heads, but I liked starting here because hiking along the stream was a great way to start. Having something beautiful to look at is a helpful distraction from climbing the many stairs!

My least favorite hikes tend to be those where there is nothing interesting to see until you get to the top. Gwanaksan, happily, was the opposite of that experience! Besides the stream and the cool rock formations, there is also a temple complex to explore before you even reach the summit.

Yeonjuam Temple originally was established in 677, although the present buildings were relocated to this site in 1411. Buddhist practitioners still utilize this temple for prayer, and indeed a number of people entered the main building for prayer while we visited quietly.

In addition to the main temple complex, Yeonjudae Hermitage also is located on this side of the mountain, although it is perched on a peak higher than the rest of the temple. It is thought to have been built by the Buddhist Monk Uisang in 677. You can see why it is a hermitage! It’s possible to hike to the building itself, but it was very crowded so we contented ourselves with this more distant view.

From the hermitage, it was a matter of climbing some more stairs (of course!) to the summit. There were more city and mountain views along the way. Luckily, we can never get too much of these views!

After waiting in line with a few dozen of our closest friends, we were able to make it to the summit, marked by a stone with Chinese characters. There was a line to get to the stone for a personal photo op, so we just took a cheater shot.

Gwanaksan Meteorological Radar Observation Station is also located at the top on a nearby peak. Hence, all the fencing and barbed wire!

Having reached the top, it remained only to climb back down. We didn’t go back the way we had come but continued over the mountain, heading for SNU which we had just seen from above! Another rocky stream gave us something scenic to distract us while we climbed the steep rocks and stairs down.

When we finally reached the bottom of the mountain, I got a tour of some of SNU’s (amazingly large) campus. Guess what? There were lots more stairs! I would swear we walked uphill all day long. On this day, I clocked 21,865 steps and 166 floors climbed. Whew!

As is often the case, our hike ended with food. This time it was Korean barbecue. For those who aren’t familiar, this is not Southern-style barbecue. Each table in a Korean barbecue restaurant has a grill in the center. Your order is for a quantity of raw meat (usually there is a variety from which to choose), and then you grill the meat at your table. On this occasion, we grilled several kinds of beef. We also enjoyed a number of side dishes, which is the Korean culinary custom. Unfortunately, we were so hungry from the hike we forgot to take a photo until all the food was gone! You can tell from the empty dishes that we enjoyed it, though.

Our knees having survived another hike, we are dusting off our boots to get ready for the next one!

Want to see more photos from Gwanaksan? Check out Peter’s Flickr album here.