In the summer of 2022, having just completed the Blackyak 100 Mountain Challenge and written my review, I decided take on the Blackyak Baekdudaegan Ridge Trail Challenge, the Korean way. Now, 2.5 years later and I have officially finished.
Before diving in, I believe it’s important for me to define the phrase ‘the Korean way”. Although the Baekdudaegan Ridge Trail is a continuous trail that runs for 700+ kilometers, it’s not utilized by the locals as a thru-hiking trail. This is in part because the concept of thru-hiking doesn’t really exist in Korea, like it does back in the US or Europe. There are a number of foreigners and some Koreans who have thru-hiked the Baekdudaegan and written blogs or books about their experience, but this is a near-exclusive foreigner approach to hiking this trail. If you are interested in learning more about thru-hiking the Baekdudagean, I would recommend you check out Roger Sheperd’s book “BAEKDU DAEGAN: Hiking Korea’s Mountain Spine” available on kindle or his older edition’s paperback version.
As of the summer of 2024, less than 2,000 Koreans have officially completed the Baekdudaegan trail with Blackyak, and nearly all of them did so the ‘Korean way’ – by hiking 10-30km sections on the weekends, with a hiking tour bus company or with a hiking club which arranges buses.
Hiking the Korean Way: Over the course of 40-ish non-consecutive weekends, I hiked all the sections of the Baekdudaegan Ridge Trail with the hiking tour company, 좋은사람들 – which translates to ‘good people’. It took me about 2.5 years to complete all these trips. However, my official finishing time is closer to 4 years because I had randomly acquired a credit in the spring of 2021. I got credit for the challenge with the Blackyak Alpine Club (BAC) app, which requires you to do GPS check in and submit photos of you at 100 set points along the trail, which is then verified by a 3rd party – I detailed this process in my guide to the Black 100 mountain challenge. The BAC app is what makes it ‘official’ and what makes it a challenge as opposed from just a hiking the trail.
My review will focus on my thoughts on the trail itself and my experiences hiking with the Korean bus companies to complete the challenge. Its not a step by step guide on how to hike the trail, but rather one person’s opinion on an experience that so few foreigners have been able to have – specifically the section approach.
Hiking the Baekdudaegan Ridge Trail
The Baekdudaegan Ridge Trail Challenge is the ugly step sister of the more glamourous 100 Mountain Challenge. It attracts almost no attention and seemingly only men in their 50s and 60s are hiking it. A third of the trail’s total length is extremely boring and twice as difficult than an average 100 Mountain Challenge hike, with less facilities and trail conditions that would leave me with scratches nearly everytime. It was easily some of the hardest hiking I’ve done in the 6 years I’ve lived and hiked in South Korea.
With all that said, I loved this challenge so much more than the 100 Mountain Challenge.
(1) The Baekdudaegan Trail brought me back to the best the 100 Mountain Challenge had to offer
The Baekdudaegan Ridge trail runs through 8 of the best national parks in South Korea (from north to south), including; Seoraksan, Odaesan, Taebaeksan, Sobaeksan, Woraksan, Soknisan, Deokyusan, and Jirisan. By hiking the Baekdudaegan trail I got to see sections of some of my favorite national parks that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to see, the full Sobaeksan National Park Ridge Trail and the Deokyusan Full Ridge Trail come to mind. I also got to re-hike courses that I had previously done and loved, such as Jirisan’s Full Ridge and Seoraksan’s Dinosaur Ridge Trail.
Although there were any number of sections that were very difficult with very little pay off in terms of views, there was enough ‘good’ to make it worth it.
(2) Hiking alone but with a community
If you take on this challenge in 10-30km sections instead of a thru-hike, its impossible to do so by car or by public transportation – there is no debate here. Leaving only privately run and operated buses as the method of arranging transportation or a dedicated crew to do a two car arrangement. Having completed about 20-30 of my 100 Mountain Challenge hikes with 좋은사람들, I was comfortable relying on them for logistics. This company creates hiking ‘groups’ that hike a sequential section of the trail every other week, with the group set to complete the whole course in about 2 years. The groups operate on set days of the week which depart every other week, with most groups focused on Saturday and Sunday. While the groups frequently see the same people signing up for their trips month after month, you can pick and choose which trips you want to do. I didn’t have the schedule consistency to routinely stick with one group, so I instead bounced around between 4-5 hiking groups. As a result, I got to meet a lot of different people and always had friendly faces waiting to hike with me and share food.
There are two big differences between the bus hiking cultures for the 100 Mountain Challenge and the Baekdudaegan Ridge Trail Challenge.
- The hiking group arrangement makes it so that you are more likely to encounter people you will come to know, so even going solo you don’t feel as alone.
- With the Baekdudaegan, you are in the middle of no-where half the time, so there are no restaurants to eat at. People end up preparing food and eating together at the end of the hike next to the bus. It tends to be that you are given 5-8 hours to complete a hike, and if you finish early, it leaves you time to get changed, relax and eat & drink. It can turn into quite a production – multiple bottles of soju, makgollie, and beer & ramen, snacks etc. Each group does it a bit differently, but the ‘extra’ nature of the set up remains the same. Having seen but never participated in the hiking clubs which have their own private bus, they take it to the next extreme with massive food and drink selections. It’s not uncommon to see them clacking those massive jugs of soho. It’s quite a scene. [Hiking club = a club with a couple dozen members which you have to apply to join and typically they have their own website vs Hiking company’s group = a company that arranges buses to different places, you can sign up for a spot on the bus and the ‘group’ designates a certain order/ schedule to the trips]
(3) It’s actually in nature
South Korea is a small, highly populated country with an abundance of hiking trails. This means there are no shortage of trails – however the best trails are very overpopulated and overly groomed.
In the United States, if you wanted to go to a 10/10 beautiful trail, it truly depends on where in the US you are, on whether it will be incredibly busy and very groomed. Sure, if you are in one of the major national parks (Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite etc), it’s not surprising that there will be crowds on medium difficulty trails. However, if you go to say Wyoming’s Wind River Mountain Range, Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, or Idaho’s Salmon National Forest – you get just as incredible views without the same overcrowded conditions [a general statement]. It also helps that the parks are so big, that visitors are more spread out. That is the fundamental difference between hiking in the US and Korea. South Korea and its parks are too small for the best stuff not to be over-saturated with demand, which results in high tourist densities in ALL of Korea’s most beautiful locations. It’s not enough to ruin the experience – sunrise on Seoraksan is awe-inspiring no matter how many people are there – but I’ve never been alone long enough on the trail at one of these parks for me to feel the ‘one with nature’ feeling I got hiking back home.
The Baekdudagan and Korea’s island mountains are notable exceptions. The non-national park sections of the Baekdudaegan are on average not as beautiful as the national park sections, but they are more isolated.
Then we get into wildlife sightings: The forests of South Korea are pretty silent – it’s an extremely rare day on the trail that I see anything bigger than a squirrel. I have hiked nearly 300 peaks in South Korea and I could likely count the number of times I have seen deer on my fingers and toes. Half of those times have come while hiking along the Baekdudaegan. This is a consequence of the deforestation and afforestation in South Korea – the majority of forestland in Korea was planted in the 60s-90s, without thought of the rest of the ecosystem. Though The Half-moon beers were reintroduced in 2004 and there are a number of different mammals living in the mountainous national parks, however wildlife remains fairly absent from Korean forests. Of what’s on the peninsula, some of the best species diversity is found along the Beakdudaegan. Everything from wildflowers to animals, its best along the Baekdudaegan. For those of us who have spent significant time in Korea, its relative greater density is a welcome change.
(4) The Unique Experiences that come from Hiking the Baekdudaegan, the Korean Way
I decided to hike the Baekdudagen Trail in sections for a couple reasons:
(A) As a resident of Korea that relies on a visa for my longterm stay, I could not easily take off work for the amount of time it would take to thru-hike 700+ km.
(B) The logistics are impractical: no natural water crossings, national park fire closures, camping restrictions in national parks, intense rain in the summer and the disconnection of the trail at 황장산 – made the thought of thru-hiking the course unappealing.
While I’ll can’t relate to the thru-hiker experience, the section approach has its own unique aspects and experiences.
Highlights of section-hiking the Baekdudaegan:
1. The post-hike bus experience: Eating and drinking with others, relaxing in local streams, and eating in local mountain restaurant.
2. Being hauled in the back of a local farmer’s pick-up for 7km for the two hikes that start at 고치령 (near Sobeaksan national park).
3. The cable car up Deokgyusan mountain to get to the ridge, to reach (지봉) – Having to do this trip twice because my bus leader realizes 30 minutes from the mountain that the trail is closed due to heavy snow fall from the previous day.
3. Missing my bus at Sadang Station at 6:40am twice because I arrived too late….
4. The random places I got to go – Ex. Cave restaurant and the sheep farm.
An interesting consequence of hiking this course with the bus companies is that I think about this challenge in terms of valleys and not peaks. While the credits come from mostly (70%) from peaks along the trail, trips were defined based on their start-end positions, and that’s how you plan your trips.
(5) It helped me decide to go back home
After 6 years of living and hiking in South Korea, I’ve decided I’m moving to rural America, specifically South Dakota. Hiking the Baekdudaegan helped me to find peace with the fact I am closing the Korean chapter of my life. I have hiked the best of what Korea has to offer, multiple times over. And now it’s time for the next chapter of my life.
I’m not quitting the blog, I’ve got a ton of Korean hiking knowledge left to share. But I’m excited for what’s to come.
Happy Trekking.
-Aurora
