A Finishers Review of the Blackyak 100 Mountain Challenge

My fun hobby of hiking transitioned to a full blown obsession when I started the 100 Mountain Challenge hosted by the Black Yak Alpine Club (BAC).

Two years later I’ve reached the finish line, and I’m here to share my thoughts on this massive undertaking.

My Journey

I started the challenge in October of 2020, with no real intention on finishing. Over the course of the next six months I hiked 25 mountains, which had me hiking roughly 4 times a month.

It was at this time that I wrote my Guide on the 100 Mountain challenge. With the solo purpose of trying to get others to join.

Then after a three month trip back home, I returned to Korea with a renewed drive. In the following 8 months, I completed the remaining 75 mountains.

My Review

Overall it has been an exceptionally rewarding experience. This process has allowed me to get out of the corona blues and has reignited my passion for the outdoors. I would recommend anyone with an interest in hiking to download the app and join the challenge. It’s free!

But, I would not recommend undertaking the challenge with the intention of completing it, unless you want to stay in Korea for 3+ years.

Completing the challenge in the amount of time I have (two years start to finish, or 1.5 years of active effort in Korea), will demand the dedication of all of your free time.

The first half of my challenge time, (Oct 20’-May 21’: Mountains 1-25) was a free casual sort of fun. With dozens to choose from, it was easy to pick a mountain that both my friends and I wanted to go to.

But the second half (Sept 21’- August 22’: Mountains 26-100), became a methodical exercise that required a lot of planning. For as you progress though the challenge, the mountains to choose from diminish. An obvious statement, but it has big effects on the approach you must adopt toward the challenge. You have to go to specific mountains, so making progress where you rely on friends, hiking groups or bus tours will become difficult (for the chances they will go to the specific mountains you need declines). The lack of popularity of certain mountains on the list, and other factors such as fire restrictions, only adds to the difficulty.

It also means you have to travel farther as you complete all the mountains close to you first. This makes the required travel time and travel expense likewise an increasing burden over time.

As a result, Seoul residents often end up doing the Jeollanam-do mountains last. And as I was a Jeollanam-do resident, most of my final mountains were close to Seoul.

The Drawbacks

If you just want to hike for fun and you use the challenge to help you pick mountains, the following negative aspects don’t really apply. These are specific to going the full mile and completing the challenge.

It’s easy to assume it’s just a hiking challenge, but I found it to be a logistical nightmare disguised as a sporting event. With half the difficultly coming from the hiking itself and the other half dealing with the logistics of traveling to every part of Korea. Including everyone’s favorite island (Jeju)

1. The Expense

Hiking your local mountain doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby, but the challenge is stupid expensive to actually pull off.

Transportation costs, occasional housing, multiple season hiking clothes, seasonal accessories like snow shoes spikes, new shoes when they break, and food as a minimum. Don’t forget Jeju’s Hallasan is also on the list, so there’s flights/boat fees to contend with as well.

Then, it’s easy to overspend. Such as different bags for different types of hiking, different styles of clothing and little swag items like the 100 mountain patches.

The challenge also incentives spending by offering ‘points’ that work toward discounts at Black Yak that expire if not used. The point system is actually pretty cool, and I detail those benefits in my challenge guide.

2. A Car / Hiking Clubs

If you don’t have a car, there is no completing this whole challenge relying on public transportation alone. A car or an active hiking club with similar goals is 100% necessary.

I personally didn’t have a car. Of the 100, I did roughly 20 by public transport and the remaining 80 through my friends with cars, my Jeollanam-do regional hiking club and Seoul based bus tours. Of those 80, maybe 30 I could have done by public transport. But it would have doubled my stress, travel time and expense.

3. The Quota Mountains

The challenge isn’t the best 100 mountains in Korea. Rather, I would say it’s the most regionally representative mountains of Korea. The mountains are chosen so that there are roughly 20 in each province.

Which means there were about 15 total I felt were a chore to do. With them either being super boring or unexpectedly short (which might not seem like a bad thing but it’s frustrating when its a 2 hour drive each way). This means you will likely find yourself doing two in one day, just to get them out of the way.

But that’s does leave 85 decent or better ones.

It’s a double edge sword, if it was the ’best mountains of korea’ one’s location would determine their ability to complete the challenge. Instead, its roughly the same degree of nightmare to complete, transportation wise, for everyone.

The Good

1. Bragging Rights/ Community

According to the Black Yak Alpine Club website, more than 147,000 people have gotten credit for one or more mountains from the 100 Mountain Challenge. By joining the challenge you are joining a large community of hikers passionate about the outdoors. And likewise once you finish you will also be far from alone. When I finished in August 2022, I was the 11,481st person to finish.

Furthermore, as you progress through challenge and you make it public, people give you ‘kudos’. This ranges from random people on the mountain telling me ‘good, good’ when they see my hiking patch. Or others giving me encouragement online as I post my latest updates.

Its a great starting point for conversation when people see the patch or when I take a picture at the peak with the official challenge flag.

My status in the challenge also acts as my resume of sorts when it comes to showing my hiking experience, and has facilitated me being accepted into invite only hiking groups and my place on a sponsored trail running team. It has also cut down on the unsolicited advice from random old men on the mountain.

Additionally, once you get the 100, it opens up another world of sorts with different opportunities. Such becoming a Black Yak Sherpa.

2. Sense of Purpose

While this might seem a little cheesy, this challenge has been emotionally and spiritually very rewarding. It took my fun hobby and gave me a sense of purpose behind it.

Additionally, I have taken a lot of satisfaction from the challenge, as it gave me a goal that is large but allowed me to make steady progress. The patches at each increment of ten, also served to make the challenge seem more possible with a great sense of accomplishment each time i could rip off an old one and sew on the next one.

3. Getting to Know Korea and its Regions

On two instances I’ve given presentations to the Korean National Park Service on the differences between Korean and American national parks. One of focuses of these presentations has been the ease in which people can travel to hike, learn about Korean culture/history and appreciate local food.

The example I like to use is Gayasan National Park in Gyeongsangnam-do (경상남도), in the southeastern region of South Korea. Here a tourist can enjoy the beautiful views of Gayasan, visit the UNESCO protected Haeinsa Temple and enjoy rural dishes such Deodeokguie (더덕구이, a grilled root dish – that is delicious objectively haha).

As someone who isn’t a massive temple or museum fan, I will focus on the food aspect.

Hiking the hundred mountains took me to a wide variety of places in Korea I would never have thought to travel to. Such as to Suanbo in Chungju to hike Woraksan where I had the local speciality Pheasant Sabu-sabu. Hiking Sobeaksan brought me to Danyang, which is famous for their garlic. Then theres the seafood, like Deokyusan’s (덕유산) famous rainbow trout sashimi.

If you are curious about alcohol, each of the bigger mountains and regions of Korea have their own unique Makgeollie (막걸리) to try. For those who want to try a different take on Makogeollie, Dongdongju (동동주) is only readily available in country side restaurants next to mountains.

After the Challenge

With this challenge finished I needed to decide on where to go from here.

“Ultimately, I decided I would (1) complete my first Ultra marathon and (2) hike the South Korean portion of the Beakdudeagan (백두대간), the mountain range that runs from North Korea to the southern portion of South Korea.”

I wrote that above goal in Fall 2022 and I’m happy to report that I have not only completed my first 50km ultramarathon, the Geoje 50km in 2023, but in 2024 I completed the 760km Beakdudeagan (백두대간) Ridge Trail Challenge as well.

I have since written a review on the Beakdudeagan Challenge as well. And it couldn’t have been a more different experience than the 100 mountain challenge!

Happy Trekking!

-Aurora