서울둘레길 2.0 Trails 3, 4, 5
– To my Seoul Trail main page.
– To the official Seoul Trail website.
These are the Buramsan, Mangusan & Yongmasan, and Achasan mountain parts of the trail and together totals about 19.2km. Below are links to the routes on Naver Maps:
Trail 3 naver.me/xpPNNUYe
Trail 4 naver.me/xdIkJgqa
Trail 5 naver.me/FKKOCjmW
Trail 4 I did with Gareth and Routes 5 and 6 alone. Trails 4 and 5 turned out to lovely and quite unique and parts I’d definitely do again. The going wasn’t as hard as 1 and 2 from last Monday but still had quite a few steps and stairs in the latter parts!
We started at about 8:30 at Danggogae Station Line 4, Gate 1 (당고개역). We walked through a residential area to get to the trail. I didn’t need to stamp my old-version stamp book, but had to start the Ver. 2.0 stamp book! We set off through forest at a not-too muggy-yet day. Trail 4 is all under Buramsan, a mountain I’ve summited many times. It’s a great rocky mountain to hike. You can hike Suraksan and Buramsan together for an extra challenge, something I did earlier. We took a few breaks on the trail including at a spot where I almost sat on a praying mantis. I saved him and photographed him. He repaid me by jumping into my face. We got to a place in town where we stopped for a Burger King lunch.
After that, it was more quite a bit more road and into a park area. The temperature was fully heatwave again! Gareth headed off around then.
Now I was on trail 4. Thankfully I was in the shade again. This trail goes up a mountain/hill and is somewhat similar to what you might experience on Namsan. It’s a tarmac road winding up through trees, the big difference being that the land is all grave yard. It’s covered with Korean style green, grassy tombs. It was a very peaceful place, calming and lovely to walk through.
Next up was the start of Achasan mountain part. You go up Yongmasan first which is a lot of steps up wooden stairs. Then down and up more stairs for Achasan. I’ve been at the foot of Yongmasan before; I visited Yongma Land the abandoned amusement park a few weeks before. I’ve been up Achasan too about 5 years ago. This part of the mountain wasn’t familiar to me. Going up the steps and to the granite rock ridge afforded lots of view points to the Hangang river and bridges. You could also see the Lotte World Tower in Jamsil. On the ridge were lots of historical sites and grassy areas on top. I could see why this is popular walking area for the local residents as it is beautiful.
Down the mountain and through a park with streams, a human-made waterfall and a cafe. There’s also a Seoul Trail office. I got my stamp and headed on towards the exit and to the subway station. At the end is a nice park area where I bought some Ceylon Tea and and ice cream and sat for a bit.
Further down on the way to the subway station, I passed through some nicely maintain allotments.