This was my fifth hike on Hallasan Mountain (Mount Halla) and it was a lovely day. I got up and down in about four hours, so had time to get down south for a boat trip to Gapado later in the afternoon! This was the second day of a 3-day trip to Jeju.
Back on Hallasan Mountain, I was going to hike the Eorimok trail, probably the easiest to access from Jeju City, and the easiest to hike. I got the earliest 240 bus from Jeju Halla Hospital (제주한라병원) at 6:40 and got to the entrance bus stop at about 7:13. From there it’s a10-15 minute walk to the trailhead. I was on a Jeju Olle Trail walking trip so had a full backpack. Fortunately, there were six lockers in the visitor rest area room, in the building on your right as you go past the car barrier! They were free to use, so in went anything not needed for the hike and up went a happier hiker with a much lighter bag!
The trail soon goes over a bridge over a dry rocky stream then it’s basically a walk up through forest and up steps for about an hour before the trees stop. It was peaceful and beautiful and I had seen only a few hikers on the trail so far. I had a break by a water spot.
Once the trees end, the trail gets much flatter and it’s hard to imagine you’re 1,500 metres up! The trail sometimes turns into boardwalks which is nice to walk an. Other parts of the trail are made up of volcanic rocks. These flat sections afford lovely views or yellow grass plains, and small green hills; the hills apparently volcanic vents and called oreum (오름). There are lots of oreum(s?) around the island and they make for pleasant hilly strolls.
You see more of the distant main crater as you cross the grassy and rocky plains. Looking back you’ll see the sea; the air quality in Korea at that point wasn’t great so it wasn’t a clear view today; I’ve seen much clearer.
I was surprised to get to the end of the trail, I’d obviously made much better time. The intersection and rest area is fully covered in decking and there is a shelter area where you can sit and eat, plus toilets and a booth letting you know the times for last entry for the two trails that lead from here. From here, you can walk on the the south wall of the crater which is about another hour. Further on from the south wall is the Donnaeko trail (돈내코) that leads all the way the south of the mountain. The other trail it the Yeongsil trail that leads to the south west entrance to the park. When I didn the Yeongsil trail in October 2023, I walked to the south wall so I was going to have lunch here then head back. I’d packed a bag of bread goodies from Paris Baguette and I was very hungry. I spent about 45 minutes at the intersection and set off at about 10:15.
The walk back was much faster obviously. The views were again spectacular as all my attention was focused now on the plains and distant sea. I was down at the entrance by 11:25 which meant it’d taken just 1 hour and 7 minutes! I grabbed my stuff from the locker then headed to the bus stop to get the 240 (plus another bus) to my next destination. At the bus stop is a lookout platform giving you nice views of the oreum at the entrance to the trail so I took a phot from up there before the bus arrived.
A great hike, and one that I’m missing already writing up this post!
While going down the mountain, I’d been considering what to do next; hike another oreum at the entrance (that’d take about an hour), or head straight to my next planned spot on the south west coast. I decided it was probably early enough to get the bus to the next destination in time to get a ferry to walk trail 10-1 of the Olle Trail on Gapado Island; it was going to rain a lot on Sunday, so this would be great as it’d free up Saturday to do another Olle Trail rather than visit the island. And yes, I made it to the harbour an onto Gapado with plenty of time for a second adventure! I’ll post about on my Olle Trail section.
An AllTrails map which takes the trail to the south wall (Nambyeok 남벽). Not my recording: