A National Park in Korea that seems to often go unnoticed to those that live outside of the Wonju region is without a doubt Chiaksan National Park.  Chiaksan which means “the Magpie Crag Mountains” is just 20 kilometers outside of Wonju.  The city of Wonju is within easy day trip distance from Seoul but despite this during my entire day hiking acros the entire mountain range I saw by Korea standards, very few hikers.

Chiaksan used to be called the “Dongakmyeongsan”, which means the famous mountain in the east due to its many steep and scenic peaks.  It was designated the 16th national park in Korea on December 31, 1984.  The trail to the summit of Chiaksan begins at the Guryongsa Temple located in a beautiful valley at the North end of the park.  From Guryongsa I planned on hiking to the summit of Birobong Peak that rises above the rest of the various peaks of Chiaksan at 1,288 meters.  From there I planned on hiking across the entire mountain range to the small village of Seongnam-ri:

The Lonely Planet guidebook says that hiking the entire range in one day in impractical.  However, the distance across the range is roughly 20 kilometers which I figured was easily doable in a day if I started off early.  So I began my hike heading for Guryongsa Temple at about 7AM.  From Guryongsa pretty much the first sight along the trail is this large pool that is fed by the crystal clear waters of this small waterfall:

This small pool is supposedly what is left of the larger lake that was once here that was home to the nine dragons that gives Guryongsa Temple its name.  From the temple the trail continues to follow the clear waters of this creek through a thickly wooded forest:

Soon I came to this sign that showed that I was nearing a camping area as well as the fact that the summit of the mountains was less then 5 kilometers ahead:

When I walked past the campground area I was quite impressed because it was one of the nicest campgrounds I have seen in Korea.  It was located in a very scenic area, well maintained, and off the beaten path which meant there were few people staying there:

I was hiking on a weekend and I counted literally four tents in the campground as I hiked by the campground early in the morning.  Just passed the campground is this scenic bridge that was decorated like other bridges along the trail with dragons:

About 1.5 kilometers past the campground I came to this last major waterfall along the trail up to Birobong Peak:

This waterfall is called the Seryeom Waterfall, which like other waterfalls along the trail emptied into a pool crystal clear water.  I actually drank some of this water since it was so far upstream and it was quite good.  From this waterfall at the end of the valley the trail began its steep ascent up the side of Chiaksan Mountain:

The climbing was steep but along the trail there was plenty of cables and iron sidebars to help pull myself up the side of the mountain.  Before long I reached this first clearing that looked straight at the side of one of Chiaksan’s many peaks:

It was here that I met the first person I had seen on the trail since I left Guryongsa.  This ajushi was a middle aged man in his 30′s from Wonju that was just hiking up the mountain early in the morning for some exercise.  He said he had hiked the mountain many times before.  He was in his jogging clothes and speed walking up the mountain.  He wanted to speed walk together up to Birobong, but I let him go by because I was in no mood to kill myself trying to get up this first peak when I had a long day of hiking ahead of me.

Anyway I continued up the mountain at my leisurely pace and as usual I was quite impressed with how well maintained Korea keeps most of its hiking trails:

As I continued hiking up the mountain if I wasn’t climbing up stairs I was ascending up a steep heavily forested trail:

Before long though I was back to climbing up stairs again:

And even more stairs:

However all the stair climbing eventually paid off with tremendous views from the summit of the mountain such as this one looking towards the north down the valley I ascended up Chiaksan from:

At the 1,288 meter summit of Birobong Peak are three very large cairns that can be seen from just about any other peak on Chiaksan:

From Birobong there is an excellent view of the city of Wonju that lies just to the west of this might mountain range:

Here is a closer look at downtown Wonju:

At the summit of Birobong I ate an early lunch as it was only about 10:00 by the time I got to the top of the mountain.  While I was snacking away I drew the attention of a few squirrels who were obviously used to people feeding them food and they were eager to get a free snack from me:

I was the only person on the summit when I got there but after about 30 minutes of resting on the summit a hand full of people began to show up on the peak.  These squirrels began to have a feeding frenzy from all the people giving them free snacks.

After checking out the views and squirrels on the summit of Birobong I then proceeded to head further down the trail to cross the entire Chiaksan ridge line to Sangwonsa Temple:

As I continued down the trail I could see that I had a long walk ahead me still to cross this entire ridge line:

Looking back at Birobong Peak I could easily see the three rock cairns topping the summit of the mountain:

Before long I was once again in the think foliage of Chiaksan as I headed further across the extremely scenic Chiaksan Nationa Park:

Next Posting: Walking Across Chiaksan National Park