I spent two days on Seoraksan Mountain (설악산), hiking along the Dinosaur Ridge (공룡능선), sleeping at Huiungak Shelter (희운각대피소), then hiking back down past the waterfalls, streams, gorges and cliffs of Cheonbuldong Valley (천불동계곡). This post details the Cheonbuldong Valley hike down. This was day three of a six-day trip to Sokcho (속초) and Gangneung (강릉).
Day 3 of a 6-day trip to Sokcho and Gangneung
Cheonbuldong Valley Hike
I woke up around 4 am and snoozed. I could have snoozed longer after yesterday’s monster hike! A few of the shelter guests were milling around. Some were asleep. Many had left during the darkness to hike up to the main peak for the sunrise. Me, I was just happy to lie on my mat! I packed and left about 4:40 and went to the observation deck to see the remains of the sunrise. Very pretty. I was on the trail by 05:00 and once at a small intersection, made my way east then north along Cheonbuldong Valley trail (천불동계곡). It was a nice easy walk for the most part, through forest and soil ground. After a quick breakfast stop at some benches, I continued on to the first of a few waterfalls. To be honest, I didn’t really know what was on this trail other than hat it was the way to exit the park, but it turned out to be a spectacular finish to my two days at the national park!
The first waterfall was lovely, though quite modest. I was taken by the clear deep water in the pool. A bit further farther down, the waterfalls, pools, and canyons got more impressive. I was sweaty enough even at this time in the morning to want to take dip. The steel and wooden steps were impressive in their own right, due to the engineering and effort required to build such a steep, long, covered wooden walkway. I spent quite a while at this waterfall before moving on, only to find another other impressive sections!
This was pretty much the what happened all the way down. Walking down seems to be the best direction to really appreciate all the views. I eventually reached the Biseondae intersection, the start of yesterday’s Dinosaur Ridge hike.
After Biseondae, it was a leisurely walk back. I stopped at Seolhyang (설향), a cafe in a hanok that I’ve been to a few times. It’s a great place to relax in the small garden area. I bought an iced pumpkin sikhye, a traditional fruit drink.
After that it was a very easy wak to the park entrance and then to the bus back to Sokcho. The trek down of 8 km took about 4 hours. The bus arrived as I did, then waited about ten minutes before driving off at about 10:10. It took about 30 or 40 minutes to get to the entrance of the Sokcho Station Hostel, where I immediately took a long, long shower before resting and napping in my bunk. I stayed in bed till about 12:30 then headed out to the coast a bit north up from the hostel and got a burger and beer, the first beer of this trip (side note, not drinking or over-eating prior to my hike meant a much more comfortable ‘toilet’ situation on the hike i.e. just number ones! So something to note for my next overnight hike!).
I spent the rest of the day wandering Sokcho which I’ll write about in another post.
An AllTrails route map of the route I took (more or less. Not my recording):