Distance: 5 km (3.1 miles)
Time: 3 Hours
Max Elevation: 385 m (1,263 ft)
View Morak Mountain - 모락산 in a larger map
March was a bit of a bad month for me, and I was unable to get much hiking done as you can see from the lack of posts. Quite a few pressing engagements came up in the middle of the month, and during the latter part of March, I was hit by a bad case of the stomach flu.
Since I haven't been able to get much hiking done over the past few weeks, I decided I needed to get back into the swing of things before my ten hour Baekdu Daegan trip coming up later this month. Normally I don't go hiking on Sundays, but since yesterday I had to attend both a wedding and a birthday party, I had to get my hiking in on Sunday.
I got in touch with my hiking buddy 'Guardian' (수호신), and we met up in the parking lot behind Kyewon Art University (계원예술대학교) with our hiking group. It seems that quite a few people in the hiking group have heard about me since I am the only non-Korean in the group. Maybe it is the fact the my reputation is proceeding me, but this group seemed to warm up to me quite quickly. I think it also helps that about four people in the group have already been hiking with me before.
After my time on the Beakdu Daegan, this hike was a bit of a breeze for me. While I did break a sweat a few times, I really wasn't ever out of breath. Although there were a few inclines here and there, much of the trail was quite flat.
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
In light of the recent 'tantrum' that North Korea has been throwing, Guardian and I practiced our military terminology in Korean and English during our ascent. I learned the Korean word from him for aircraft carrier (항공모함), and Guardian was quite exasperated to learn that the Korean word for missile silo (사일로) was a loanword.
For anyone who is concerned about the recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, this intervew with Andrei Lankov really put things into perspective.
After about thirty or forty minutes of hiking, we had already made it to the peak of Morak Mountain. Despite the brevity of this hike, the group of Koreans that I was hiking with stopped, as per usually, and had a light meal at the peak and rested for awhile. After we cleaned up, we took in the sights. From here, Guksa Peak (국사봉), which I hiked back in February, was clearly visible to the northeast. We were also able to see Suri Mountain (수리산) to the southwest. I am quite familiar with Suri Mountain since I have hiked it many times in the past. To the north of us was Gwanak Mountain (관악산), which makes up the southern border of Seoul. In addition to these two mountains, we were able to get some great views of the Pyeongchon (평촌) area of the city of Anyang (안양시). It amazing that a few decades ago this densely packed residential area was nothing but farmland.
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
Even though I have passed near by this mountain many times during my five years in Korea, I had never realized that this location had so much history. The Morak Fortress (모락산성) was built here during the Kingdom of Beakje due to the fact this peak has a commanding view of the surrounding area.
In addition to being a fortress during antiquity, the peak also played a major role as a lookout point during the a battle during the Korean War. After North Korea's initial attack on June 25th, 1950, Seoul and the surrounding areas changed hands between the UN and Communist forces multiple times until the battle line normalized into the modern border of the two Koreas. In January of 1951, Korean forces, with US artillery support, were able to dislodge the Chinese forces that had fortified themselves on Morak and Suri Mountains. UN forces were later able to recapture Seoul in the forth Battle of Seoul in March of the same year. Seoul would remain South Korean hands from that point on despite North Korea's failed attempt to recapture the city in the fifth Battle of Seoul.
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
After exploring the top of the mountain, we took a trail that went down into the valley to the east and took us back towards were we started our hike. During this part of the hike, we were able to get a drink of water from the local natural spring. This water is potable for most of the year except for I believe the monsoon season during the summer.
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
Instead of taking the same path down to our starting point, we looped around over the Morak Tunnel and came back to the starting point from a different direction. Especially in this area, we were able to see some of the first blossoms of spring.
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| From Morak Mountain - 모락산 |
While all of the barley rice restaurants at the end of the trail were extremely tempting, I was ready to head on home, relax and get ready for work the next day.
