Bukhansan hike info

Bukhansan is a mountain you reach from central Seoul with a single bus ride. The summit, Baegundae, is 835.6 m, but the shape is what stops you: three blocks of pale granite, Baegundae, Insubong and Mangyeongdae, stand up like horns, and you can pick the mountain out from a Han River bridge. Its old name was Samgaksan, the Three-Horn Mountain.

The top of Baegundae is bare rock. You pull yourself up the last ridge by the railings, and all of Seoul opens below, with one Korean flag snapping in the wind. On weekend mornings there is a queue to have a photo taken beside it. Insubong is the rock climbers' wall. You cannot walk up it, and looking up from the base is big enough.

Autumn colour is the draw, and in winter the snow-covered granite ridges show up sharply. The fortress side, along the old Bukhansanseong wall, is a gate-and-stone-wall stroll. The Uisang ridge is the opposite, a rocky switchback over one peak after another that empties the legs by evening. The summit area is windy and runs 5-10 C colder than the street.

From Seoul (MTR)

From Busan, Daegu and elsewhere (KTX)

To the trailhead (BUS)