OFF MAP KOREA-Outdoor Activity Information in Korea

The Day One Wet Sock Derailed an Entire Mountain It was a Tuesday in late October, and I had just dropped a couple from Toronto at the lower trailhead of Jirisan's Baraebong ridge . The forecast was clear, the autumn colours were at their absolute peak, and they had a solid seven-hour loop planned using the printed guidebook I give every client. I drove around to the far side to wait at the agreed pickup point and found a café to sit in. Everything was fine. Three hours later my phone rang. They'd had to turn back. The woman had stepped into a deceptively deep puddle on a narrow section of trail just past Seseok Shelter, soaked her right foot through to the skin, and within ninety minutes the combination of cold air and wet wool had given her a blister the size of a two-hundred-won coin on her heel. The ridge walk — the whole reason they'd come to that part of Gyeongnam — was over before noon. I felt terrible. Not because I could have carried her across the puddle, bu...

A Warning, Not a Welcome Every year I watch the same thing happen. A foreign visitor lands in Seoul, checks the calendar, sees a long weekend coming up, and thinks: perfect timing for a hike. They book Seoraksan or Bukhansan. They are excited. Then they arrive at the trailhead at 9 a.m. and find a queue of two thousand people stretching back to the car park. I am not exaggerating. On major Korean public holidays, the most famous mountain trailheads resemble subway platforms at rush hour — except everyone is wearing gaiters and carrying hiking poles. If you are planning to hike in Korea and you have not thought about public holidays, this post is for you. Why Korean Public Holidays Hit Trails So Hard Hiking is the single most popular outdoor leisure activity in Korea. Around 40 percent of the adult population hikes regularly, and the country has an extraordinary concentration of national parks within a few hours of Seoul. When a holiday falls on a Monday or Friday, creating a th...