Prior Posting: Ulleungdo Island – Part 3

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Hiking Up Seongin Peak

The next day of my trip to Korea’s Ulleungdo Island I decided to take a hike to the top of the island’s highest point, Seongin Peak which is 984 meters high (3,228 feet).  I was told it was roughly about an eight hour trip to the top of mountain said I set out on the hike first thing in the morning.  The trail to the peak is easy to access from the village of Dodong-ri where I was staying at because to reach the trail I just had to follow the signs through the village pointing to the trailhead.  The beginning portion of the trail is actually a paved road that switchbacks up the mountain through some farm land. The walk up the road provided some great views over Dodong-ri:

The weather this morning looked a little unsettled, but I figured the sun would eventually burn of the clouds, which unfortunately I ended up being wrong about.  Eventually the road stops and that is where the real hike begins as I ascended into the thick forests of Ulleungdo:

As I followed the trail through the forest there was occassional views of surrounding ocean such as this one looking over the village Namyang:

As I ascended higher up the mountain I eventually came upon a well constructed look out:

From here I could tell that the weather instead of getting better was now getting worse:

As I continued to push on up the increasingly steep trail and thick virgin forest it began to rain heavily:

I had come to far already to turn around because of the rain so I pushed on.  For quite a while I could see nothing but the trail below and me and fog.  That is the way it stayed until I reached the summit of the mountain that was marked with this stone marker:

By the time I reached the summit I was completely soaking wet and glad I had brought some Ziplock bags to put my camera and extra batteries in.  Up on the summit and the whole time I was on the trail I saw one other hiking group of about three people.  So I wasn’t the only one dumb enough to hike all the way up this mountain in the rain.  I stayed up on the summit for about 15 minutes eating my lunch and it rained the entire time.  Here is what the view from the summit would like on a nice day:

Click the link above to see a few more nice pictures of Ulleungdo as well.

As I made my way down the island it rained the entire way.  All in all it took me round trip up and back down the mountain about six hours.  The rain was a bit lighter by the time I walked back into Dodong-ri.  My wife and I were scheduled to leave the island the next morning, but as luck would have it, we ended up with an extended stay on the island.

Next posting: A Pictorial History of Ulleungdo