Bukhansan Dulle-gil Section 21: The Loop Nobody Walks
The trail starts where the subway map ends Pine resin, damp earth, and the faint creak of bamboo poles on a distant slope — Section 21 of the Bukhansan Dulle-gil (북한산 둘레길) opens quietly, and it stays that way for most of its 5.3 km. Almost every foreign visitor who tackles the Dulle-gil does the photogenic northern sections near Dobongsan or Ui Station. They skip Section 21 entirely, usually because the starting point near Gongneung (공릉) doesn't appear on any English-language trail map worth printing. That gap is exactly why it matters. This section threads through the eastern flank of Bukhansan National Park on a wooded ridge that keeps you in forest canopy nearly the whole way — no power lines overhead, no apartment towers visible through the treeline. For most of the walk you hear birdsong more clearly than traffic. Where Section 21 actually begins The official trailhead sits just north of Gongneung Youth Cultural Center (공릉청소년문화센터), reachable in roughly 12 minutes on fo...