Seoraksan National Park

We just hiked ALL day long!! We had the best time hiking over in Sokcho! It's a couple hour drive over to the east of the peninsula. We left at 5 am to begin the long drive over to get there and arrived at about 7:45. This place was PACKED! It seems like it is the only thing to do here. There were so many people there that we had to park two miles away and huff it just to get to the entrance of the park! It is technically a national park. And it seemed like Disneyland! The line to get tickets for the park was super long, and the line for the women's bathroom outside of the park was apparently crazy too. There were people everywhere! All over the place! Soooo many people!

There was a big map of all the different hikes that you can do there. We did two of the hikes. The first was about 4-5 kilometers, up to this really cool rock formation! Now, of course, no hike is a hike in Korea unless it is pure stairs, all the way up. Five kilometers of stairs. Everyone was tired by the end of the first hike. Also, everyone was taking pictures of everything. There were always groups off to the side and they had lots of different picture-taking spots just off of the trail that were set up for people. Well, we, as Americans, wanted to do our own thing, so when we saw this particular rock that looked like it would have a good view sitting out of the way, we just climbed over the rope and went over to it. It really was gorgeous, but lo and behold, Koreans, unable to do anything by themselves, but will follow anyone doing anything, noticed us off of their beaten trail and started coming over to see what we were up to, and in no time at all, we had now created another picture-taking spot on the trail. Just not sanctioned by the national park (because it was off the trail)!

We passed this famous rock that moves but won't roll if you push on it. Somehow it is stuck where it is, but if you push it will sort of wiggle. But the last part of the trail was straight up these giant man-made staircases just switchback after switchback up the face of the rock. It was pretty cool that they built it up so that everyone can go chill on the top of these rocks! We sat up there for a while and at some food, which it seemed like the thing to do. So many Koreans were picnicking on top of the rock.

We headed back down and got some food for lunch, just a bulgogi plate, but it was good just the same! The second hike we did was also gorgeous! We followed this river pretty much all the way up to where it came from! There were a ton of places where it waterfalled into pools that I really wanted to jump in. Some were deep enough to for sure, but I am sure it would have been frowned upon, even if it had been warm enough outside to do it. There even was this super long and wobbly bridge that went straight over this really pretty pool with the water shooting into it!

                       

The hike passed by this absolutely gorgeous waterfall, where too many people were taking pictures and seemingly no one was even actually looking at the waterfall! Then began the supposed worst part of the hike. Four-hundred meters straight up stairs that were taller than they were wide. It led to a view of a far-off waterfall. It was very pretty. But everyone was beat at the end of the stairs. We just sat there talking about all sorts of things at the top, and stayed for quite a long time. We sat ourselves in the corner that no other hikers seemed to want to sit, but of course, when we were there long enough, eventually Koreans wanted to come see why we were there and what they were missing out on, which was nothing, and they started crowding us, so we left and hiked back down!

Summit!

On our way down, we saw a little chipmunk chillin' on the side of the trail! Brian decided to feed it some of his almonds. At first the chipmunk was a little timid, but by the end, he had cheeked 9 almonds! It was so funny! He just kept shoving them in there! His cheeks grew like 5 sizes and his body weight probably tripled 😂

At the bottom of the hike, everyone stopped to put their feet in the big river at the head of the trail and near the exit to the park. Everyone but me, that is. It was way to cold for that. But I still enjoyed jumping on rocks to sit out in the middle of the river. It was very pretty and peaceful. Overall, a great day in the park. We took our two-mile trek back down to the car, and then the drive home took several hours as well. But it was a great day enjoying the beauty of nature!