Blossoming Seoul: Autumn in the Seorak Mountains

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, what you would call a "nature girl", but I can certainly appreciate natural beauty so this weekend I strapped on my hiking shoes (okay, my tennis shoes) and forced myself out into the natural world to appreciate the peak of autumn in Korea. On Saturday morning I got up at the crack of dawn, grabbed my full to the brim roll aboard suitcase (plus my pillow and backpack) and headed out for an overnight excursion to Seorak-san National Park knowing full well that a majority of my time would be spent, gulp, hiking! I just told myself that the tour leader, Mrs. Bae, was an older lady and would probably be a pretty slow hiker so I would have plenty of time to stop and take photos since she would be keeping a leisurely pace. I also pretended that the bus ride would only be a few hours. It's a good thing I'm good at fooling myself or I may have turned back before I even boarded the bus!

From one green arrow to the other--the distance from Seoul to Seorak-san National Park

The reality of the situation hit when we boarded the bus and Mrs. Bae handed out the itinerary. The ride to Seorak-san was going to take the better part of five hours. Luckily, I had absolutely nothing better to do than sit back and enjoy watching the scenery of northern South Korea pass by while catching up with my friends Gigi and Alice! The rest of our tour group consisted of a Korean couple whose names I never managed to learn, a lovely German lady who is in Korea doing language studies, a Korean-American woman who works as a military contractor providing counseling services to soldiers and their families, and a Korean lady who resides in Germany but travels back to Korea often to take care of her small business. Overall, I'd say we turned out to be a great group of travelers! Our little yellow bus departed before 8am and we made two rest stops along the way. Korean rest stops are always a toss up in terms of quality and amenities. Some, like our first stop, are tiny shopping malls where you can find all sorts of things from food to clothing. The further you get from Seoul, however, the more rustic things get. I've lived in Asia for over three years and I can count on both hands the number of times I've had to use squatty potties...I think I filled up the second hand on this trip and it was only two days long (perhaps this is an exaggeration, but I always approach the "rustic" looking bathrooms even in Seoul cautiously because you never know what you'll get and heaven help me, my balance isn't that great so those squatties always make me sweat a little!).

The further northeast we drove, the worse the weather started to look. After such a gorgeous week I was feeling so bummed out that the weekend was going to be soggy and that we were going to have to hike in the rain. Didn't I leave Oregon to avoid this? When we arrived at Seorak-san National Park, the rain seemed to have broken temporarily so we jumped out of the van and took pictures of one side of the mountains. Everything looked gray and shrouded in mist. A little while later we checked into the hotel and grabbed our gear for our afternoon hike. At this point, I was so mad at myself for not packing my rain jacket. An umbrella sufficed, but I couldn't take many photos and the DSLR camera stayed in a ziplock baggie in my backpack (just in case the weather let up). The hike was a bit treacherous as the trail was essentially covered in slippery rocks and leaves and all of my energy was focused on not slipping or tripping. In fact, I found myself looking down most of the hike so I could see what the path ahead looked like. At one point we heard a large thud and turned around to see a man had slipped and fallen onto his rear-end on the rocks. It looked incredibly painful and all I could think about from that point on was "don't fall"! On the hike back the rain stopped and I pulled out the camera as soon as I could! The shots weren't great, but at least I could capture something! We stopped at the Buddhist temple on our way back to the hotel and made a final stop at the Giant Buddha statue. Before dinner we had about an hour of down time, so Alice came and hung out in our room and we toasted our weekend getaway! After dinner everyone in the group, except me, headed off to the Korean baths. Even after three years I'm just not quite ready to embrace the naked public baths concept, and I had a massive headache, so I opted for medicine and bed!

One of my first photos of the Fall colors--from my iPhone and edited with Instagram

The Valley and stream taken from my iPhone and edited with Instagram

Tiny stacks of rocks representing wishes taken with my iPhone and edited with Instagram

Even with a gray sky, the fall colors are beautiful!

Such dramatic, rocky mountain faces.

The mountains, shrouded in mist.

Fresh raindrops on the branches.

The wall around the Buddhist temple.

Inside the temple grounds.

Beautifully painted structures.

Golden leaves of the ginko tree.

The giant Buddha statue!

Buddha's hands

Our hotel inside Seoraksan National Park

After a fitful night of sleep we awoke to glorious sunshine. Thank you Lord! Not a single person in our group opted for the four hour hike to the top of the mountain so we had a later breakfast and set out around 8:30am for Ulsanbawi, the rocking boulder. It was about a 2 1/2 hour round trip hike and well worth it! The trees were bathed in sunshine, the sky was blue, and it was warm enough to hike in our short sleeved shirts. On our way up the mountain we passed a flowing stream, burning trees (that's what they call trees in full color here), and loads of other hikers on the trails! At the top we were in for a real treat--not only was the rocking boulder there, but a mountainside temple. It was spectacular. Tiny Buddhas were hidden here and there and the small temple was built ride into the rock on top of a boulder. Very cool. Gigi, Alice, and I had our photo taken in front of the rocking rock...but we forgot to try to rock it! Oops! We made great time on the way back down so Alice and Gigi decided to stop and dip their toes in the stream. It looked a wee bit too cold for my liking, so I just volunteered to take the pictures.

See what a difference a little sunshine makes?!

Outside the walls of the Buddhist temple.

One of my favorite shots.

Still a little misty.

Almost no editing needed--these colors are the real deal!

The little temple built on the rocks.

Colorful lanterns!

Tiny Buddhas everywhere!

For some reason, door fixtures captivate me.

Gigi, Alice, and me with Ulsanbawi

The leaves were all aglow.

Taking a little dip.

Cool looking tree bark.

More stunning colors!

Back at the hotel, we had a quick lunch and then took the cable car up to the top of...well, the top of it all! It was just a five minute ride up, up, up with thirty plus of our best Korean friends. After piling out of the cable car we all made a beeline up the trail to the "top". Ten minutes of hiking took us to the ledge, or the "scary edge" as I called it. There were no guard rails to protect people from falling off the edge of the mountain! We had a bit of photography fun far from the edge before heading for the summit. Although determined, the crowds and a little fear of heights got the better of all of us. You literally have to scale up the rock face using ropes with knots in them to get to the top. Then you have to come back down while others are trying to come up. The whole thing was like a bad dance so we gave up about halfway up the ropes--it was just too terrifying. Besides, there was one last trail to hike waiting down below and we certainly couldn't miss out on more hiking.

The cable car path.

Rocky peaks.

This picture is terribly overexposed, but I had to put it in!

The "summit"!

We made it halfway to the waterfall before we had to turn back in order to make it back to the bus in time for our 3pm departure. None-the-less, the final hike was on flat ground and it was quite pretty. On our way back to the hotel we found some leaves to play in and by this time we were pretty much hiked out! Five hours on the bus, two rest stops, and lots of traffic later we made it back to Seoul. What a fantastic weekend! In all, I think Gigi calculated that we hiked approximately 15 miles in two days. Not too shabby for this non-hiker! Better yet, we saw some absolutely fantastic fall foliage and enjoyed the wonderful company of friends and I crossed another item off of my Korea bucket list. That's a win-win all around in my book!