On my second hiking trip of May, I went to Daedunsan Provincial Park with a few friends. Daedunsan is located a little outside of the city of Daejeon which is north of Gwangju. Getting to the park was a bit of a trek. Overall, I think it took us about four hours to get there. First, we had to take a two hour bus ride to Daejeon. We caught the 6 a.m. bus from Gwangju to Daejeon; luckily, we were all able to sleep a bit on the bus. After arriving in Daejeon, we grabbed a quick breakfast from Paris Baguette (one of my favorite bakeries in Korea) and then got on the next bus. We had to take two buses within Daejeon to get to the park. The first was 30 minutes and then we transferred to the second bus which was an hour since we rode it until the end of the line. The second bus ride took us through the countryside near Daejeon. There weren’t many people on the bus and the areas we were driving through became more and more rural. We saw lots of fields and very small houses; it was a side of Korea that I don’t get to see very often and I’m always grateful when I do because it’s so beautiful.
Finally, we arrived at the bus stop and got our first real view of the mountains we’d be hiking. They were stunning and reminded me a bit of the rocky mountains I hiked at Wolchulsan. We walked about 20 minutes alongside the road to get to the park entrance. From there we followed the other hikers to the trailhead.
It didn’t take too long for us to start our ascent. Like all Korean hikes, this trail wasn’t messing around. Fortunately, we were in the woods for the duration of our hike up which kept us cool as this was probably the first really hot day of the year at 88 degrees Fahrenheit. We also got lucky that the upward climb was over fairly quickly, although there were some very steep parts. I think the hike up only took us an hour so it wasn’t bad at all.
When we were almost to the top, we reached the thing that made me want to visit Daedunsan in the first place: The Staircase. This has got to be the steepest staircase I have ever climbed and most definitely the most terrifying. I was excited to see it, but the excitement turned to a little bit of fear as I realized I was actually going to climb it. We built up our courage at the beautiful overlook next to the stairs and then decided to go for it. I led the way and I was trying to get up those stairs as fast as possible. It was fine at the bottom, but as you kept climbing, you realized the stairs were swaying and you couldn’t help noticing that you could see the ground below you through the grated material of the stairs. It was also deceptively long; it seemed to last forever, but finally we made it to the top! Whew…thank goodness.
After conquering the staircase, the hike to the peak wasn’t bad at all. We made it to the peak and joined the rest of our fellow hikers in enjoying a nice lunch. The peak was 878 meters (2,880 feet).
When we finished our lunch we realized we had a bit of time before we needed to start making our way back to Daejeon. We decided to take one of the trails that split off from the one we’d come on and hike that for a while. I’m really glad we did because there was no one on this trail besides a few other people providing a bit of peace from the craziness of the peak. We did a little off-trail exploring and we found a really cool rocky area with amazing views. There was no one else there making it even more enjoyable. From this small peak, we spotted several rock climbers on the rocks below us. After our stair climbing experience, I was even more impressed with the rock climbers.
We hung out there for a while before deciding it was time to start our descent. On the way down we tried to find a way to get to the suspension bridge that Daedunsan is also known for, but we couldn’t figure out how to get there. However, we were able to see it above the trail which was cool. The hike down only took about an hour as well. It was a fairly rocky trail so we had to take our time at some points, but it wasn’t anything too challenging. We walked back to the bus stop and began our four hour journey back to Gwangju.
Although it was a short hike, it was definitely exciting and well worth the amount of travel to get there. The views were amazing and the stairs exhilarating; all in all it was a very memorable hike.
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