A Great View of Seoul, if You Follow the Rules
SEOUL — On a clear day, the peak called Bukaksan soars up behind the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential residence, like something out of an Asian watercolor painting.
But there are several things to keep in mind if you intend to take the Bukaksan Fortress Walk, a trek of 2.2 kilometers, or 1.4 miles, that was off limits to the public until 2007 and still has security restrictions.
A visitor’s pass must be worn at all times during the hike. To get one, a hiker must come to one of the two trail heads between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., present a passport or government-issued ID and complete a short form, which is available in English.
Once you are on the trail, which is closed Mondays, you can turn back but you cannot leave the path. Unarmed soldiers dressed in pea-colored windbreakers watch every hiker’s every move. The soldiers are respectful, offering directions, but they will intervene the moment a camera is turned in the wrong direction: toward the presidential office downhill.
On the north-facing side of the trail are a centuries-old granite fortress wall, part of a 21-kilometer enclosure that once protected central Seoul, and two modern steel fences topped with concertina wire. The trail side facing the presidential compound is lined with infrared sensors that would alert soldiers, heavily armed and waiting in out-of-sight bunkers around the hill, if they had to defend the presidential compound from intruders.
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Such restrictions are part of the allure of the walk, which generally takes about two hours to complete and attracts about 400 people a day. On weekends the walk can get crowded, with as many as 2,000 hikers piling up on the narrow, steep path.
“It’s a curiosity that makes a Korean like me want to come here at least once in my lifetime,” Chung Song-un, 54, a first-time visitor, said as he stopped to catch a breath.
The capital city sprawled below the trail, which was lined with azaleas, forsythia and magnolia in bloom. The mountain is so close to the city center that one hiker could pinpoint his hotel.
Decades ago, Westerners flying into Korea likened the land beneath them to a sea in a gale: 70 percent of the territory was covered with mountains and, over the centuries, rocked by foreign invasions, wars, civil strife and political and economic upheavals.
Nearly every hill has a tale, most related to ancient invasions from Manchuria or from Japan, or to the Korean War of 1950-53.
Bukaksan, in particular, has its own rich history.
Taejo, founding king of the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910), chose Bukaksan as the guardian mountain of his new capital when he built a palace at its southern foot. The modern-day presidential compound is squeezed in between that palace and the mountain.
The steep, 342-meter, or 1,122-foot, peak was supposed to protect the capital from invaders from the north. But the city was sacked several times, most recently by North Koreans during the Korean War.
The granite fortress wall — first built in 1396 along the Bukaksan ridge, rebuilt 26 years later at a cost of 872 lives and mended numerous times since — looks like a patchwork today, a testament to the country’s tumultuous history and the evolution of wall-making techniques. A signpost says in Korean that the methods used to chip and stack blocks can help determine when portions of the wall were rebuilt.
“The wall doesn’t look too refined, but it bears the marks of our nation’s long history and culture,” said Cho Si-young of the Korea Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is in charge of maintaining the fortress.
Near the western trail head stands the statue of a police commander killed in action in 1968. At the time, 31 North Korean commandos crawled through the heavily guarded border 50 kilometers to the north and came within striking distance of the office of President Park Chung-hee. In skirmishes that raged for two weeks around Bukaksan and other craggy mountains in the region, all the intruders, except two, were killed.
One survivor is presumed to have returned to the North and another one, Kim Shin-jo, was captured, saying at a news conference: “We came to slit Park Chung-hee’s throat.”
A government sign near the statue reads: “We may open our heart but must keep our guard up.”
From the statue, hikers climb steps made of stone or wood along the old granite wall. At rest stops under pine trees, you can meet people sharing their seaweed roll snacks or school children who have paused for a history lesson. Some hikers say they have run into President Lee Myung-bak on the trail, surrounded by bodyguards.
Past the peak, where Vulcan anti-aircraft guns faced the northern sky until they were moved to a nearby pillbox in 2000, is the most famous landmark on the trail: a pine tree that took 15 bullets during one of the 1968 gunfights.
The crooked tree, with bullet scars highlighted in red paint and circled with white, is treated reverently by local hikers, who touch it as if to soothe it or to share the pain of being part of a divided country.
A favorite topic among Bukaksan hikers in recent days has been North Korea — its latest provocations and the chances of Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the South Korean leader it once tried to assassinate, for winning the presidential election in December.
Further along the trail is Candlestick Rock, a spot where a long steel shaft was removed after 1945, the end of Japan’s colonial rule. Koreans say the Japanese drove many such shafts into the country’s mountains during the era, believing they would suppress the citizens’ rebellious spirits.
The trail ends at Sukjeongmun, one of the four main gates of the wall that once encircled central Seoul. The city government recently opened a longer walk retracing the path of the whole 21-kilometer wall, though half of it has given way to urban development.
Hikers who want to finish at Sukjeongmun can descend into Samcheong-dong, a district famous for its small and large museums, tea and coffeehouses, trinket shops and restaurants.
Bukaksan is “not the biggest or most dramatic of Seoul’s many peaks,” said John Delury, an American professor who likes hiking in the mountains around Seoul. “But there’s a delicate beauty to it, some stunning views looking down on downtown Seoul, as well as intriguing bits and pieces of modern Korean history.”
Many of Seoul’s mountains are less than an hour away by subway from the city center. So on weekends, seats may be filled with residents dressed in brand-name hiking gear, carrying backpacks — and often drunk, at least on the return trips.
“The only downside about Bukaksan is, due to the heightened security concerns, soju and makgeolli — the local spirits that Korean hikers are fond of breaking out at the summit — are forbidden,” Mr. Delury said.
How to get there
Take subway line No.3 (the orange line) to Gyeongbokgung station. Use exit 3 and take bus No. 7212, 1020 or 7022. After a ride of five to 10 minutes, get off at the Jahamun stop, which is a minute’s walk from the western trail head.
More information can be found at www.bukak.or.kr/etc/english/index.asp. However, the site’s description of how to obtain a trail pass is outdated.
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