Hiking Sobaeksan 소백산

I took a trip to Chungju Lake and Danyang. The first day was mostly in Chungcheon and the rest of the trip was exploring Danyang, which included hiking Seobaeksan, driving to a huge temple, and watching paragliders while sat at a coffee shop in the surrounding hills.

DAY 2 OF 4-DAY TRIP to Chungju Lake & Danyang

Sobaeksan hike

I drove about 10 minutes to the entrance of Sobaeksan National Park, then drove back about half a click back to find some free parking; I wasn’t sure, but I think only people staying at the accommodation are allowed to park there… need to double check.

Walking back up the road to the park got me into the hiking mood; I could see houses and farmland in the valley and lots of green hills. There’s a cool waterfall on the way too, that has a small, unusually windy canyon formation called Darian Falls (다리안폭포).

The trail itself start wide enough for trucks then gets gradually more rugged until you hit the ‘real’ trail. However, at no point did I ever have to climb up anything or even use my hands; easy going but also looooong!

There is a stream along a large part of the trail, and it’s all wooded, so there aren’t any views of the surrounding landscape until you get to the top. I reckon it was probably about two hours of walking.

The top is pretty unique in my mountain hiking experience in Korea; it’s a large hillside swathe of grassland which drops off either side into lush green valleys.

The peak is flat with a rock marking the spot of course. I had my picnic up there, then wandered towards some tents I saw coming in; there was a work crew up there building or replacing a walkway designed to keep people off the grass. Seems like a big project. Also, must be pretty nice to spend a night or two up there.

Since I’d driven in, this was going to be an out-and-back hike and it’d taken longer than I’d anticipated. Time to get moving!

Frankly, once off the peak, the hike does get quite samey (no offense mountain!). In some ways it reminded me of hiking Hallasan on Jeju, just on a smaller scale.

On the drive back to the hostel, I noticed a restaurant area and decided to walk back for a drink and find some food. It took ten minutes to walk from the hostel back to this place. It turned out to be the entrance Gosu Cave (고수동굴). I recognised it as a place I’d visited many years ago with the Adventure Korea travel company. It was an interesting cave trip and thought about doing it again but thought I’d skip it. I grabbed a cold can of cider and sat on the terrace of a convenience store. There were restaurants and gift shops on the strip but no food options that appealed to me at that time. On the walk back the sun was setting and creating lovely views as walked over the bridge.

So, I was still needing some food! I walked back to the market but it seemed like only deep fried chicken was available, or places that were closing. I ended up at a place in the same block as my hostel called Daegyo Sikdang (대교식당). Basically ‘Bridge Restaurant’! I got some haejangguk and some local Sobaeksan makgeolli; delicious! I came again.