Day 264

HIKING IN KOREA: SAMAKSAN

The first of May is Labor Day in Korea!  That means no work, right?  Kinda.  Unlike the American Labor Day, which is typically spent grilling with one's family and neighbors, the Korean holiday is a day for a 'team-building' experience with your coworkers.  So at 8:30am we all met in the parking lot, loaded up into the van, and drove to our destination: Samaksan Mountain.

Samaksan is 2,146 feet tall (654m) and is one of the most popular mountains in Chuncheon.  Because it's just two hours from the capital city and has lots of outdoorsy activities, Chuncheon is a popular day-trip spot for Seoul-dwellers.  If you are in Korea and interested in hiking Samaksan, public transport directions are at the bottom of this post.  It takes about 3-4 hours to hike up and down, assuming you like to stop for snacks and photos.

But enough background information.  Let's see those photos!

First waterfall of the hike!

Large, very well-built... rock pile?

These flowers are everywhere!  Chuncheon is beautiful.

They also come in hot pink and white.  So pretty!

Obligatory moss-and-water photo.

My hiking buddies, Rachel (left) and Kristine (right) on the Staircase of Lies.
The sign said 333 steps till the top.  We thought that meant the top of the mountain.
Nope, just the top of the stairs, halfway up the mountain.

The trails are really well-kept and nicely made.  Apparently they make all the poor army guys make the trails!
(Contrary to what most Americans think, there's not much in the way of war excitement here.)

Lots of beautiful rocks and beautiful people!

Rachel brought the perfect hiking snack: cucumbers.  Cool and crisp, just like the mountain air.

View from the Staircase of Lies.

There's not much foliage to be seen yet.  It's only May 1st!

Finally, after about two hours, we made it to the top.  There's a nice commemorative marker that you apparently need to touch.

We did it!

The view was spectacular!  You could see all of Chuncheon from up there.  Click on the photos to make them bigger--they're worth it.  (Also: if you're not a fan of reading, you can click on any photo to go into slideshow mode.)

Click to make me bigger!  Chuncheon city is on the very far right.

Breathtaking!

I'm a really big fan of panoramas.

 We got some group shots, of course.  I think we're missing a few people, but then again, not everybody made it up.

We did it!  With beautiful Chuncheon in the background.

It was a hard hike, but we did a good job.  On the way down we stopped at the Buddhist temple we'd failed to notice on the way up.

A temple!  But seriously, once you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Still pretty though!

Big stone pagoda, and the monks' house is on the right.

La casa de monks!  It looks an awful lot like the CIEE student house in Bonaire!

I love dragons.

Monk!  He was chanting into a microphone, so everyone could hear him.  More temples should do that!

After the temple, Chad (who, unlike me, is a legitimate photographer) and I took a bunch of pictures and ended up making the rest of the group wait for 20 minutes.  Sorry, guys!

My photo-buddy.

And what were we taking pictures of?  Wildlife!  It's pretty rare to see animals in Korea.  I see some birds once in a while, but that's it.  I've seen nary a cockroach (except in my kitchen last week, but don't worry, I killed that little cretin before it could kill me).  I saw a squirrel one time, and I've been here for almost nine months.  And Chuncheon is an 'outdoorsy' area.  It's pretty weird for someone who's used to seeing deer, foxes, coyotes, groundhogs, rabbits, etc. in their own backyard.

A butterfly!

If you've been on this blog before, you know to expect spider photos.

Not a super special spider.

Sorry buddy, but you don't impress me much.  Where are your yellow orb-weaver buddies?

Spider?  The shadows of the legs made it hard to tell if it was an ant or a spider.

Welp, it's a spider.

 But it's shaped more like an ant, and it didn't seem to use the two front legs much for walking.

About twenty minutes from the end of the trail we spotted a nest of squirrels!  They look a lot like the American variety, but there are two noticeable differences.

1) The tail is less fluffy.
2) They have hairy ears.

The hairy ears are kinda cute.  It makes the squirrels look like crotchety old men.

Go ahead, try and tell me this doesn't look like an angry old guy.

The ears are so hairy!

They have kinda freaky monkey-like feet.

Look how big the feet are!

They built a nest in a little alcove in the rock wall.  So cute!

The nest!

This photo screams "MEME!" to me.

Here's a little bird.

And now a few more photos taken by my coworkers:

Hiking is hard work!

I look way too cheerful for this amount of walking uphill.

One of many snack times.

Snack time again.  

I love this one!

Going down the Staircase of Lies was actually harder than going up because all our legs were shaking.

I temporarily solved that problem by sliding down the railing a few hundred feet.

At the temple!

Chuncheon has a lot of hiking, so hopefully I'll get to do a little bit more now that it's getting warmer.  Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Ashton






How to get to Samaksan from Namchuncheon Station: 
Exit Namchuncheon Station and don't cross the street.  The bus stop is near the escalators.  Take the number 3, 5, or 55 bus until you reach Samaksan station.  It's 9.2km and should take about 30 minutes.

If you live in Chuncheon, you can take number 3, 5, 50, 50-1, 51, 53-1, 55, 56, or 86 bus routes.  The bus stops are #1850 and #1851 (삼악산).  

If you're not familiar with the bus system, the Daum maps app on your phone will show you where the bus stops are if you zoom in close.  Click on the bus stops for where you are and where you want to go, and it'll show you which bus to take to get there.  To get the approximate time before the next bus comes, use an app called Bomnaebus/Korea Bus RealTime (ChunCheon).