The BlackYak 100 Mountain Challenge is an endeavor of epic proportions. It will take you to every region of South Korea. It will test your mind and body. The vast majority of people who start the challenge don’t finish it. For most it’s just a fun way to track your hikes.

This guide is for every level of hiker; those just curious about the challenge, those interested in using it to better track their hikes and those who won’t settle for anything less than challenge completion.

In this guide I’ll cover the following topics:

1. What’s the 100 Mountain Challenge?

• What are the benefits?
• Is there swag?

2. How do you sign up for the app?

3. How to do get credit for the hikes?

• What happens if something goes wrong with the check it?

5. Wanting to hear from someone who completed it – Read my full honest review of the 100 Mountain Challenge

6. 10 Pieces of Advice for people wanting to do the whole challenge

7. Other challenges hosted by the Blackyak Alpine Club (BAC)

If you want to support my blog or get yourself some cool Korean national park swag, please consider checking out my Etsy shop! I make Korean camping and hiking souvenirs!

1. What is the 100 Mountain Challenge?

Blackyak is a relatively high-end company specializing in outdoor clothing and hiking equipment, and has risen from relative obscurity to perhaps the premier hiking brand in South Korea. They achieved this in part by launching the Blackyak Alpine Club (BAC) which offers six challenges to complete – the 100 Mountain Challenge being the most well known.

The 100 Mountain Challenge does not take its challengers to a random set of mountains, rather they are seen as some of the greatest, most beautiful mountains in South Korea. The 100 are fairly evenly spread out across the various provinces, as well as on Jeju Island. Thereby exposing its members to a wide variety of landscapes and localities.

Just Considering the Challenge? Read my full honest review of the 100 Mountain Challenge

As of April 2023, more than 190,000 people have signed up for the challenge and recorded at least one mountain hiked. But the number of people who have seen the challenge to completion is much less. When I finished in August of 2022, I was the 11,481st person to finish the challenge. At the time, only 6.5% of challengers had hiked all 100 mountains.

Whether you’re interested in taking on the challenge yourself or just entering for the fun of it, there are benefits you can take advantage of by joining the Blackyak Alpine Club (BAC).

The Benefits: Growing Discounts!

Being a member is free and in fact discounts begin rolling in from the beginning – in the form of a 20% one time use discount code that has a 1-2 month expiration. This code only becomes available to you after you have logged your first hike. As you progress, you continue to build points, also known as BAC 멤버십 코인 (membership coins). These coins are given to you in proportion to the height of the mountains you climb. For example, a 1,000 meter tall mountain gets you 1,000 coins. But after you hike that mountain every time afterwards you hike it its only 10% of the coin value, so that 1,000 meter mountain the second time is worth 100 coins. These coins directly translate into discounts – but there are limits. A 1,000 coin value is 1,000 won but up to a 10% discount. So for example, in you buy a 5,000 won product, at most you can use 500 coins /500 won off because the max discount allowed is 10%. But this value can increase to as much as 30%!

Where it gets a bit complicated is that the coins are used in store rather than online. The online ones are the BYN 멤버십 포인트 – distinguished by them being ‘points’ and not coins. The points are given to you in credit when you buy products like other standard company buying incentive programs. But where they are connected is that the more you spend on their website logged in, working toward your BYN account points the higher your BAC coins can get you in discounts.

Which means you need to spend money without the discount on the Blackyak website, building you BYN spending account, in order to qualify you BAC account to give you better discounts. It’s a scheme for sure.

See the below image for the spending BYN ranking to Coin usage limit ‘코인 사용 한도’.

I accidentally did this before realizing the system and how to use the coins – since coins are only used in the store. I was making purchases of winter hiking gear and clothing through the online store, to the point where I reached bronze rank on my BYN account. As a result, now I’m entitled to 20% discounts for all of my 300,000+ coins. I’m not necessarily recommending that strategy, especially if you don’t intend on living in Korea long term, but that increased discount is nice. Might be worth considering this method if you can get a group of people together who want to buy hiking stuff.

**But the BYN ranking does expire if you don’t consistently buy products year after year.

After finishing half of the challenge, and then when you completely finish the challenge you will receive an additional one time use 20% discount code.

** Insider baseball ** Almost every time I went shopping for Blackyak products I saved a lot of money in store. This is because the small stores tend to give you discounts anyway on their products. And if you let them do so first and then you tell them about your coins, you can sometimes walk away with both discounts.

When going to make a purchase and using your coins you will need to show them your membership number. This can be found by clicking on the face icon (도전자정보) -> BAC 코인/포인트 ->BAC 멤머십; It is the top number labeled ‘멤머십 번호’. Listed below that is your total coins as well as a transaction history of all the coins you have gained and spent.

The Products

One of my favorite subtle aspects of the challenge is the ranked buying system on challenge swag. As you progress you qualify to be able to buy different items based on how many of the 100 mountains you have completed. My favorite of which are the 10 patches they sell for 7,000 won each. In order to buy each of these patches, you must have at least the number of 100 mountain challenge credits as the number on the patch. The one exception is the 100 patch, you can buy that patch at 99 to have in your final photo – which is a big deal to a lot of people.

The same is true for the modern design of the 100 mountain completion patch as well as the Baekdudaegan patch and the Island and Mountain patch – you have to had completed these challenges to qualify to buy them. The last two patches are the only patches associated with those two challenges. So part of what makes the 100 Mountain Challenge so special is that you can track you progress with the patches. I did this starting in the 30s. Now looking back on my hiking photos is very special because I can see the progress I was making and can relate once again to how I was feeling at the time (such as when I was feeling like a big deal for getting to 40 which is a funny thought now).

Additionally, you can purchase the below flag to take photos with at the mountain peaks. In red, it advertises that you are a 100 mountain challenge challenger, while the green side is for the Baekdudaegan Challenge. This is a new design as the old flag (pictured toward the top of the article) was black with pinkish writing. The old one is no longer available. This new one can be purchased on the website for 14,000 won, and anyone can purchase it.

They also sell Baekdudaegan maps for the sections of the courses for that challenge. I’m currently half way through that challenge and I haven’t purchased them. I don’t think they are necessary but might be worth considering if you are interested in that challenge.

Getting Fancy – once you complete the challenge you can pay 15,000 won for a nice thick paper completion certificate. Or if you are a big spender you can pay 100,000 won + for the plaque.

Signing up for the Blackyak Alpine Club

Signing up is a fairly simple process, just download the app and create an account. When you sign up for BAC app, you can participate in any and all of the challenges. The app is fairly straight forward to use, but there is no English option.

You do not need to sign up or opt into any of the challenges, simply hike a mountain and check in, you will be automatically signed up for the challenge that the mountain is a part of.

Using the App

Search 블랙야크알파인클럽 in the App Store to find the app and download it.

Getting credit for a mountain is a two step process. (1) Using the app you check in at the peak – the app uses GPS to confirm your location. You must be within 100 meters of the peak for the GPS to work. This is done from the center bottom pink button, labeled ‘인증하기’. From this screen, if you are within the range of a check in point, it will turn green. You click and confirm the GPS.

The app supplies these images to help you understand the process better

Then, within 48 hours you need to post a photo of you at the summit stone – as proof of you personally hiking the mountain. There is a small ‘social media’ aspect of the app. You can add friends, follow people, write about your hikes, and look at other member’s hiking maps etc.

** if you forget to post the picture within 48 hours you will lose the GPS credit **

There’s a delay in getting credit as real people are checking the photos to make sure its you and you are where you said you were. They will reject you if they cant tell its you; they cant tell where you are or if you are in the wrong place. Specifically, they mention that if you wear a mask, you can’t also wear sunglasses in the picture. For the location, it can not be a group picture. But you don’t have to wait in the massive line to take a proper photo every time. It’s fine if you take a selfie with the rock and other people happen to be in it. Further, you cant just take a picture of the view even if it’s famous and obvious, the name of the mountain/the requested photo spot needs to be in the image.

**You do not need to have a flag in the photo to get credit ** There was a time when it was required but it no longer is.

There is no back dating hikes. If you hiked Seoraksan last week and you sign up this week, there is no method for you to get credit for this hike. This is because the first step is the GPS check in, so even if you have hiked the mountain a dozen times you have to be physically at the peak to start the credit process.

What happens if something goes wrong with my check it?

While South Korea is quite famous for its amazing cellphone coverage, there are times that it can fail you in your time of need. Worry not, the BAC has considered this. Twice a year you can get credit for mountains without the GPS check in. By going to the same middle pink/red bottom button and as seen in the image below, selecting ‘긴급인증’ from the top menu, you can then apply to get credit. But this must be done within 72 hours of you taking a picture at the peak. Also, along with your normal photo with the summit, you need to attach an additional image that has the meta-data of the image, for them to check the date/time. If you forget the meta-data in your submission, it is put into a ‘need attention’ style category, where you can then edit which photos are attached and resubmit.

After it is processed and been approved, it has the ‘긴급인증’ label at the top instead of the GPS 인증 label.

If you are seriously doing the challenge, then don’t waste these two credits on mountains in challenges you aren’t actually wanting to complete. The last thing you want to do is find yourself in a position of having to hike a mountain again.

The 100 Mountain Challenge (명산 100 or BAC 100)

The 100 mountains are nicely and evenly spread out across with nation – as can been seen in the image below. Its’ a challenge that will have you exploring every major area of South Korea – making it accessible to people regardless of what city you reside it. There are roughly 15 to 20 mountains in each province – with a significant number following the Baekdudaegan mountain range and also clustered around Seoul.

My Advice For People Super Serious about Finishing the 100 Mountain Challenge

If I was to give advice for people just starting off or in the first half of the challenge I would tell you the following;

• Pick your final mountain now. – Your ideal final mountain might be one that is easy to get to, super beautiful or meeting some other criteria. For me I selected a mountain that was both meaningful to me as well as super easy to get to. Bukhansan’s Dobongsan was the first proper hike I did in South Korea, so I saved it to be my last in the challenge. Another benefit to that selection was that it was easy for my friends to get to as well as for my mother to join in. Having important people with me that day was very meaningful and my mountain selection played a big part in helping me make that happen

• Take advantage of hiking groups – If you were to go by public transportation all the time it would in fact be much more expensive than going with hiking groups on buses or in personal cars. You can save on expenisve KTX tickets, overnights in areas without cheap accommodations as well as a lot of little expenses that come with slower more time consuming weekend trips. Save money and time.
• Beware transportation and relying on hiking groups gets harder as you go – When you start the challenge, that weekend you can hike any of 100 mountains. But as you continue on, the available pool of mountains you need has diminished. And once you get to 70 or 80 under your belt, the chances your hiking group will be going to one of the mountains you still need is really small. There’s also a decent likelihood you have already gone to all the mountains that are easy to get to by public transportation. So my advice, start getting the ones you have no idea how you will get to, done first. I know that might not make a ton of sense, but I’m sure you will have times where you can control where a group goes or where your friend with a car is willing to drive. These are the moments to pick the public transportation absent mountains. Knowing these mountains is also key, leading us to the next point ->
• Learn the names of the mountains early – There are a lot of names (100 to be percise), and beginning to learn their names and locations early into the challenge makes trip planning much easier to tackle. It’s sort of like class you are taking. It additionally helps with taking advantage of hiking group opportunities when they arise because you know which mountains are on the challenge and which ones are not. There are a lot of mountains that are often traveled to that are not on the 100 mountain list (제비봉 is a famous example), knowing this is valuable in making decisions. This is not a super easy task, but it gets easier as it goes.
• Prioritize trips that do 2 mountains in one day – Not all the mountains are worth savoring every moment of. As I mentioned in my review of the 100 Mountain Challenge there was a significant number of the mountains that I viewed as ‘filler’ mountains. Additionally, some of them are quite easy and near to other ones, and it would be foolish to not take advantage of the distance you had to travel to get there.
• Hike with others completing the challenge – but only hikes mountains you haven’t gotten credit for, you have a 100 of them to do theres no reason to be wasting time like that (unless is like Seorsaksan haha)
• Think and write about mountains with their Korean Hanguel names – Korean language resources online about the courses and conditions are far superior, you will encounter mountains with Korean only signs, and due to differences in romanization its easier to communicate with other people (both Korean and foreigners) also doing the challenge this way as they then wouldn’t have to ‘translate’ it back to hanguel for them to look up the mountain on the BAC app.
• Buy and wear the patches – 100 is a long process. The patches break the challenge into smaller goals, which give you a greater sense of reward as you go, as well as helping you stay motivated. It also allows for fun interactions with people surprised to see you doing the challenge and encouraging you.
• Use Instagram ‘recent’ Images to check trail conditions – Theres nothing worse that getting told there isn’t snow on the mountain, not coming prepared and feeling like you are going to slip and fall, breaking your neck on a hike. The recent photos give you the best feeling for what is actually occurring.
• Lastly; consider doing the Baekdudaegan courses for some of the mountains. If you decide to do the Baekdudaegan after finishing the 100 Mountain Challenge, as I am currently doing, it will save you a lot of repeat hiking. Also, often times these courses are extremely beautiful, better than the straight there and back courses. For example, the Deokgyusan (덕유산) Baekdudaegan section was breathtaking while the regular course options are just okay.

Additional Challenges hosted by BAC

The Island and Mountain Challenge (섬&산100)

This is probably the most beautiful and interesting challenge – its focus is on the small little mountains on the countless islands in South Korea. This is truly the challenge for people who love the ocean and want to get off the beaten track. Like the original 100 mountain challenge – you have 100 mountains to hike on these islands.

The Baekdudaegan (백두대간)

Can you guess how many mountains are in this challenge? If you guessed 100, then you win the medal. This track of must hike mountains runs from Seoraksan to Jirisan along the Baekdudaegun mountain range. This range stretches into North Korea, with the tallest mountain in this range being in the north – but for obvious reasons they selected all their mountains in the south.

A full write up expected in the fall of 2023, as I’m currently half way done with this challenge.

Happy Trekking everyone!

– Let me know if you have any questions or feel I left anything important out!