Dubongsan hike and Itaewon

BY ONEIKA RAYMOND


The area around Seoul is a hiker’s paradise, and Korean hikers put everyone to shame with their state-of-the art hiking gear. I love walking in general, and did a 4-day hike through the gorgeous trails in Nepal last year, so when the opportunity came up to do the “relatively short” Dubongsan hike (located in the Bukhansan National Park), I jumped at the chance. Liebling and I braved the crowds in the metro and rode out 50 minutes to Dubongsan metro stop. I knew that this was probably a serious hike when I spotted an increasing amount of Koreans decked out in hiking gear with each passing metro stop. Koreans DO NOT PLAY when it comes to hiking gear, yall! With all the North Face, Columbia, and Timberland labels I saw, I would not be surprised if the Korean economy was single-handedly responsible for keeping the hiking clothing industry afloat. Liebling and I felt severely under-dressed in our running shoes and our hastily thrown together hiking attire (namely a singlet and leggings for me, and a t-shirt and cargo shorts for him).

The joke was that the average age of these hikers was probably around 50. Yes. I know.

We descended at the appropriate metro stop and followed the mass exodus of well-dressed hikers to the trail. Various storefronts hawking hiking stuff lined the walkway, and I briefly flirted with the idea of procuring one of those hiking poles that closely resembles a ski pole. Liebling scoffed at the idea and I left the stick behind. We DID however buy some freshly made sushi rolls at one of the food stands on the walkway. Very tasty.

Boy, do I regret not buying it! The hiking trail turned out to be a lot steeper (and longer) than I would have thought. I was only about 4 kilometres up to the Jubong peak, but it took us a few hours to do, as the terrain was uphill, craggy, and sometimes difficult to climb without using both hands and feet (so yea, buying some gloves proooobably would have been a good idea as well). Halfway up my body was ready to surrender and I had sweat through my singlet and warm-up jacket. But we plugged along, not to be outdone by the 50 or so seniors who were also doing the hike, and at a pretty decent clip.




After a pit stop and lunch break on the way up, and a treacherous last section were you had to use ropes to pull yourself up (as the rock face was too slippery and too vertical to attain any sort of foothold nor maintain any sort of resistance), we finally got to the top. It was gorgeous.







After catching our breath (and after I was able to still the bouts of mild vertigo I was having- I’m afraid of heights), it was time to come down. Which I almost think is worse than going up. I had visions of slipping and tumbling the the mountain, especially on the slick, super vertical parts (of which there were many!) where you had to use a rope in order to steady yourself on the way down.

With the up and the down, the getting lost in the woods on descent and the rest and pit stops, we did the hike in about 6 hours, give or take. I give it a thumbs up, but it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.

Later on that evening, after resting our tired bones for a moment, we went to check out Itaewon. Itaewon is apparently the district where all the expats go out. I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly, but wasn’t a THING going on out there when we went. Granted, it was a Thursday, so maybe on a weekend it’s more interesting. But if I had to do it all over again, I would definitely give this area a miss. We had dinner at a lovely Mexican restaurant in the area, then took a cab back to our little hotel.



SHARING IS CARING

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