May 2-3,
2006. I took this solo trip while my
wife was out on her school field trip.
Odaesan National Park is about 4hr bus ride from Seoul.
Seoul is about an hour train ride from Incheon so instead,
I took the Incheon Non-Stop Bus to Gangneung for 3:30hrs
then I took another bus from Gangneung to Jinbu for an
hour. From Jinbu I took a local bus to Dopingol Campground
for half hour.
I first planned
to stay at a shelter because it supposedly costs the same
to camp anyway, but the gentleman was charging me W35000
for one night. The campground only costs W3000 and it
was empty at that time.
I
hit the road the day after. I passed by the Dondaesan trailhead
but it was close for the dry season... there goes my traverse
plan. I went straight to the Birobong Peak trailhead for a farther
half hour walk and tried my luck there.
From
the trailhead, Birobong Peak is only a little over 3kms hiking
on mostly stairs, passing 4 temples. The first temple is Sangwonsa
Temple. One of the temples that was lucky to survive the Korean
war from being destroyed.
I dodged Sujeongam Temple to take a shorter route to the third
temple, Sajaam.
At
the fourth Temple, Jeongmyeolbogung, I met a Korean gentleman
with Canadian kids living in Vancouver. He asked me "Canada
is so beautiful, why did you leave? Mountains there are bigger".
Then he wished me luck in getting to the summit with my backpack.
