북한산 (구기계곡->문수봉) February 18, 2023

Hello world, it was my third time hiking bukhansan.
I want to share this short trip story with you.

[네이버 지도]
비봉 공영 주차장
서울 종로구 구기동
https://naver.me/GZq2zNzP

네이버 지도

This is just a screen shot of parking lot.

You can park here, but not free.
I parked for 4hours and they charged me 7,200krw.
I don't think it's cheap but considering we're in the middle of Seoul, it's not too expensive though.

This is the original plan i had in my mind.
But due to harsh wind and low temperature, I gave up making a circle. Instead I went down same way back🥲

After parking, I went up to the starting point of the national park.
I passed by a Russian Embassy.
Weather was shitty but I could feel this was a very well off neighborhood.

If you live here, you can enjoy this stream during hot summer days. Can you imagine? it'd be awesome.

Clean mountain water flowing down from the Bukhansan.

Another big house on the way to the entrance of the national park.

Bukhasan trail is literally 5mins from your front door! House in the nature...wow

But, there must be some downsides too.
how about privacy?

There should be hundreds of visitors passing through this road. Sometimes they are drunk with makkuli after hiking.

And how about snow and icing problems?
Living in apartment has less charm but has more practicality. 🙂

Do you see the red dot?
That's where I started the hiking.
Quite down south.

At the entrance, you can see these well made huge maps. good good
현위치 means <You're here>


[네이버 지도]
구기탐방지원센터
서울 종로구 비봉2길 90
https://naver.me/xogtsk9H

네이버 지도

Let's start the hiking.
This is the only restroom you can find during the trail road. Make sure to use it , unless you wanna squat down and show your peaches to other hikers (public humiliation)

I thought, it was a good idea to choose this trail.
It was quite serene and fresh!
Not so many visitors, that I could genuinely enjoy every steps touching the ground.

Especially, water running down every little and big rocks was worth watching.

구기계곡, Guggi valley was not entirely frozen.
I was able to enjoy the running valley water during the early part of the trail.

현위치= you're here

During winter, trees are asleep.

I wouldn't be the only person thinking <Who brought these heavy rocks here to make stairway?>

Thanks to the people who worked on this trail, some parts are very accessible. Thank you mountain guardians.

Maybe I picked the wrong day?
What's happening with weather?
It was misty, gloomy and getting unbearably cold.


[네이버 지도]
구기계곡
서울 종로구 평창동
https://naver.me/GG0E9igm

네이버 지도

Walk walk and walk
Breathe in and breathe out
Breathe in 2x and out 1x

Repeat and repeat.

what's that?
that's a Pexxx Stone!
If i push the top stone, would it roll down?
oh then I would cause a rock avalanche!
I don't want that.


[네이버 지도]
대남문
서울 종로구 구기동
https://naver.me/GWGDHpRQ

Here I arrived almost at the top.
대남문, one of the 북한산성 fortress gates.
Honestly, they all look the same.

But wait!
what are these?
I met 5 wild dogs.

A clan of wild dogs seem to have been living here.

They all have different sizes.

They were approaching to hikers and (indirectly) asking for food.  One big one was horny and wanted to fxxx a little sized one. But supposedly she was already taken by another male doggy. Two male doggos were on subtle tensions around the female doggy. Human society is not very different from it.

One middle-aged hiker threw a big loaf of bread to this doggie. And in 2 minutes,  I was able to read a sign saying not to give food to wild animals in the mountain.  They will end up losing theri wild instincts and multiply their population.

some of them will be very hungry that maybe... end up  attacking human hikers???

and... what if it will the guy who fed this dog 1 year ago?

From 대남문, I decided to put on crampons.
surprisingly,  I was the only one who's wearing them!

I wanted to go further,  which was my original plan, but I was too cold and tired. I didn't eat at all. I was not hungry but I felt lack of energy.

Since I'm practicing intermittent fasting,  I know that I'm not losing fat and that I'm not in nutrients deficiency. It's just low sugar status. Still I felt tired. (in two days, I realized why.. It was 2 days before my period..🩸)

This is a junction where hikers coming up from different trails meet.
There was a nice dynamic up there.
Since I came up all the way alone through the quiet trail,  it was fun to see groups of different people chatting round. 🙂

Up at the top,  the vibe was different.
The light snow from last night made this magical atmosphere.

The pick that I was planning to check out was off the map👁👁. It was located out of the official trail. Oops. I thought,  do I just skip? But no..I came up hard way.. Let's walk up off road.

[네이버 지도]
문수봉
경기 고양시 덕양구
https://naver.me/5peiG7uq

네이버 지도

I walked literally 5mins  and it was the pick.
I immediately understood why it was not officially marked on the map. It was horribly dangerous. haha. There was no handrail or iron bars to hold on to. rough cliff itself it was.

I filmed a video here and my rasp was recorded.
I was breathing roughly with excitement and fear.
One missing step, you're saying goodbye to this world.

This is the way to make a round circuit, which I decided not to go on. From this moment, sky started to clear up.

Most probably,  I was quite tired coming down. There are not so many pictures taken..
I was so hungry that I sat down in a random big rock and ate some cooked sweet potatoes.

While hiking down, I almost fell down.
My new shoes don't have strong grip on my ankles.
My ankles were shaking between rocks ans pebbles.
Still, thanks to the hiking sticks, my knees were less painful. I slowly start to understand the importance of proper equipment 🙂

Here we are, back to the beginning point of the trail.
Whenever I pass the countering machine, I think, I returned alive, safe. Will there be any hiker left behind today? Will there be anyone who clocked-in, but not able to clock-out?

Walking back to my car, I passed by the same big houses again.  Who's living here? What kind of lifestyle would they have? How long have they been living in this house? How they manage this house?
Little questions that nobody would care...haha

This is the final  route that I took.

It took 4hours!