muhaksan & sirubawi 무학산 & 시루바위 (masan)

761.4 meters

7.2km return

📍trailhead

I’ve long considered Masan as my “Korean hometown”, if there ever were such a thing. When Andrew and I first arrived back in 2007, we spent one of the best years of our lives living in Samgye, on the outskirts of Masan. We returned to the same neighborhood for another two years several years later. Although I’m all about Geoje island life now, Masan will always have a piece of my heart.

It was during our time here that I first got a taste of Korea’s mountains. Muhaksan was a favorite that we often found ourselves hiking up on random mid-week holidays throughout the year.

Lately, I’ve had an urge to return and relive Muhaksan in all of its glory. Luckily, Ashleigh was up for a last minute hike, and opted to join me for a little adventure. Although there are several trailheads for Muhaksan, I wanted to take my old route from Samgye.

The trail starts to the right behind a house. Follow the narrow concrete roadway for about five minutes as it snakes up the mountain. Soon you’ll be entering the woods on a proper hiking trail.

The trail itself is pretty easy to follow with plenty of signage and distance markers along the way (something that I don’t recall there being back in the “ol’ days.” Eventually, you’ll arrive at a well graveled mountain access road to cross over. Apparently this was put here maybe four years ago according to some other hikers. The trail continues directly across the road.

There will be a few bench areas to rest along the way. One point of interest is the sign for Sirubong. This is also the turnoff for Sirubawi, the large rock that you may have spotted through the trees (and will definitely notice from the peak). Sirubawi is where the cover photo was taken. Although it takes you 0.7 km off the trail, adding the 1.4 km to the hike was well worth it in my opinion. We opted to visit Sirubawi on the way back down.

For the most part, the trail isn’t overly steep since it is a longer route to reach the peak. Once close to the top it actually gets relatively flat for about the final 1 kilometer.

Arriving at the peak, you will see a large helicopter pad with the summit stone behind it. There is a great view towards the sea from here. For the first time ever I realized that Geoje was so close and it was easy to spot the bridges leading to Geoje.

There are some fantastic views of Masan City down below. And I have no idea why, but I didn’t really take any picutres that showcased the city view, but trust me it’s there!

As you approach the helicopter pad, to the left there is a looong set of stairs that leads to a field with a bunch of benches and a few more steps to a wooden gazebo. We trekked down the 365 steps (nicely labeled by date so you know how much further you have to go when coming back up.)

At the bottom, It was my fist time seeing a weasel in Korea, and it was pretty darn cute hopping down the trail towards us.

After we got our fill at the top, we began to head back to down with a plan to visit Sirubawi.

As we reached Sirubong, we turned off the trail to go and check out Sirubawi. I remember seeing it many times over the years but I don’t think I ever visited (or knew how to get there) back when we lived in Masan. So it was nice to finally check it out.

The timing was perfect and we got that nice golden hour glow.

Of course golden hour means hustling to get off the mountain before dark, which we almost did. Instead we met the mayor of Chirwon and had a nice chat with him before he caught up with us again and kept us company for the final kilometer of the hike as darkness fell. Overall, it was a great day and I’m so happy I got to revisit an old favorite.

Alternate Routes

There are several other routes that will lead to the peak. This one is starts from Baegunsa Temple closer to downtown Masan.

📍trailhead