Distance: 9 km (5.6 miles)
Time: 4 Hours
Max Elevation: 614 m (2,014 ft)
View Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 in a larger map
This morning, I headed over to Indeogwon Station (인덕원역) and from there caught a bus that passed through the mountain range that separates the city of Anyang (안양시) to the west from the district of Bundang (분당구) to the east. I got off the bus a bit before entering Bundang itself in an area called Pangyo (판교), just to the west of Bundang.
With the high prices and overcrowding in the extremely wealthy Gangnam District (강남구) in Seoul, Bundang and Pangyo have been built to serve the needs of the affluent just outside the capital to the south. While this area does have a lot of nice, upscale restaurants and a plethora of parks along the local streams, it is a well too organized city that has been overly planned. Tens of thousands of wealthy families (or families that are trying to appear wealthy) have moved into this grid-like residential area, yet the place feels quite artificial. Enough of my critiques of social stratification; I digress.
Once off the bus, I walked for a bit to the entrance of a nearby park and headed up the stairs to start my hike to the city of Uiwang (의왕), which is located right next to Anyang.
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
From here, I traveled west through park along some hills until I came across Expressway 100, which is a highway that completely encircles the city of Seoul. This expressway also connects the Bundang and Pangyo areas to the cities of Anyang and Uiwang. This expressway could been seen for most of my hike back to Uiwang since the trail runs parallel to this road for most of the journey.
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
Before most of my hikes, I used Naver Maps (나이버 지도) since they are quite good at plotting all of the different hiking trails throughout the country. Because of this program, I was able to find a good location to start and end, along with the easiest ways to get there by public transportation. However, when I was mapping my route, the trail guide on Naver showed that the path kinked to the north and the east before crossing the expressway. When I got to the end of the park, I noticed that the trail was heading south and west. After doubling back and not finding the supposed northeast passage (sorry for the bad Northwest Passage allusion), I followed the path that was there and was able to find the tunnel that traversed the highway. I had to be extra careful exiting the tunnel on the opposite side since the stairs were a literal sheet of ice.
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
From there, I headed up some steeper slopes as I continued west out of the park area and into the Cheonggye Mountain (청계산) area. I didn't actually reach Cheonggye Mountain itself since it off to the north. That will be another hike for another time. In this area and for most of the rest of the trip, there was quite a bit of snow and ice on the ground. I believe that was from a mixture of higher elevation, more shadows and more hikers packing the trails into ice. Even though the temperature was above the freezing mark that day and we hadn't had real accumulation of snow recently, I had fortunately brought my crampons (아이젠).
At roughly the halfway point of my trip, I reached Guksa Peak (국사봉), which is the highest point on this particular trail that I took. The word Guksa can be translated into English as 'love for one's country' and is based off of two Chinese characters, which are called 'Hanja' (한자) in Korean. Like Greek and Latin roots, many high level words in the Korean language are derived from Chinese characters. In this case, 'Guk' (국 - 國) means 'country', while 'Sa' (사 - 思) means 'to think about'.
In Korean, there are many other Chinese characters for 'Sa' that all have different meanings. Another meaning of 'Sa' (사 - 死) is 'death'. My high level Korean is not that great, but if someone chooses the wrong Chinese character when writing the name of the peak, it could have a completely different meaning. Additionally, 'Sa' (사 - 四) can have the meaning of 'four'. Because of these homophones of 'four' and 'death', most Korean buildings don't have a fourth floor. Instead, the elevator buttons say 'F' instead of '4'.
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
At the top of the mountain, despite the cold, I ate my lunch of a friend egg on brown rice (which was kept nice and warm with my new thermos!) and a chicken-fruit salad. It turns out that Guksa Peak is a popular hiking destination for Koreans and the peak got quite crowded. I ended up eating my meal behind the stele at the top of the peak while a number of middle aged Koreans took pictures of themselves posing in front of the monument. I am sure that my unkempt, auburn hair on the back of my head will turn up in quite a few hiking pictures.
After my meal, I was able to take some pictures on top of Guksa Peak and the adjacent peak of the surrounding areas which included the Cheonggye Mountains, Gwacheon (과천) to the north, and Anyang & Uiwang to the west.
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
As I descended from the peak, I was able to get some more views of Expressway 100 as it winds its way through the mountain pass and into the city of Anyang. Farther west, as the highway crosses through Gunpo (군포), a city that is adjacent to Anyang and Uiwang, the road becomes an extremely tall raised highway. Luckily, unlike Japan, Korea is not prone to earthquakes.
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
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| From Pangyo to Uiwang - 판교에서 의왕까지 |
When I finally made it down from the mountain, I was in Uiwang and near a bus stop. After a short wait, I was able to catch bus back into Anyang and trasfer another bus that took me back to my apartment in a short amount of time.
