Geomdansan–Yebongsan Traverse: Gyeonggi's Quiet Two-Peak Ridge
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Is There Still a Quiet Ridge Walk Within an Hour of Seoul? Most foreign visitors who ask me this question are thinking about Bukhansan or Dobongsan — both magnificent, both genuinely worth doing. But by mid-morning on a weekend those ridges are so crowded you can hear hiking poles clicking together like chopsticks in a drawer. So yes, there is a quieter option, and it sits roughly an hour northeast of the city in Gyeonggi-do: the Geomdansan–Yebongsan traverse. I drove a British couple out here on a clear October Tuesday. We passed rice paddies still wet from the morning, pulled off a county road, and they disappeared into the treeline. By the time I picked them up at the far trailhead four hours later, they had the slightly stunned look that good ridge walks tend to produce. The Basic Geography Geomdansan (검단산, 657 m) and Yebongsan (예봉산, 683 m) sit side by side in Namyangju City, north of the North Han River just before it merges into the main Han. The two summits are connected...