hwangseoksan 황석산 1192 meters

5.2km return

📍trailhead

Recently, I got to chatting on instagram with a fellow hiker here in Korea. Aurora is just as hiking crazy as I am, so we decided to go on a hike together. We settled on Hwangseoksan, since it was in a location that was convenient for meeting up, and was part of the BlackYac 100 Mountain Challenge that Aurora is working on. You can check out more about the challenge on Aurora’s blog.

We started our day with a meetup at the Jinju KTX station before driving an hour to the trailhead. The “parking lot” for this short hike is on a mountain access road. It’s well up the mountain at a starting elevation of roughly 500 meters, making it an easier hike for a bigger mountain. We were lucky to arrive early and get one of the few “parking spots” in the area closest to the trailhead.

The trail itself starts just a few minutes up the road from the parking lot. You’ll see the signage for the peak marked with 2.6km pointing to the right. Turn onto the trail here and get ready to start climbing.

The trail started with a smooth incline and after about 0.6km, we reached a large ice fall. It was nice to see some more signs of winter. Don’t worry, you don’t need to climb up here, of course that didn’t stop Aurora from strapping on her crampons and giving it a go!

We continued on the trail, which was hard to follow at times but we kept our eyes open for the many hiking flags tied to the trees and that kept us on track. The terrain gradually got a bit rockier, steep, and covered with leaves.

After the ice fall, most of the trail up was pretty unremarkable save for a large rock with a rope that you could use to pull yourself up.

The weather forecast was calling for an overcast morning, but we were lucky that the skies decided to clear up earlier than called for. It made for some great views of the surrounding mountains looking through the bare trees.

A little over halfway up the mountain, we reached the first sign of the fortress wall that Hwangseoksang is known for (and is where the cover photo was taken).

After taking in the view and getting a few photos, we continued along the wall before hopping back to the trail that veers left from the wall.

The next stop was the peak which is next to another section of wall. Here, we turned left, taking the stairs to summit stone along with one more small section of rope.

The peak itself, is a bit precarious. It makes for some awkward scrambling to pose with the summit marker.

There were some fantastic views in all directions from up here.

We climbed back down to the fortress wall to get out of the wind a bit and enjoy our lunch.

Of course, we got some lunch break selfies while enjoying the view.

One more view from the ridge before heading back down the same way we came.

It was a shorter hike than I was expecting, but we still had plenty of time to make plans for another hiking adventure soon. Thanks for a great day hiking, Aurora, can’t wait for the next one!