Hiking Mt. Palgongsan!

Hi everyone!

Last weekend, Fluke, Jackie (our friend from Canada) and I hiked one of the most popular mountains in Daegu--Mt. Palgongsan! The trip went like this...

We packed snacks (fried chicken, awesome trail mix, and garlic baguette chips from E-Mart), water bottles, and layers of clothing in our too-large-to-hike backpacks. We met Jackie downtown at Banwaldong station to switch subway lines. We traveled northeast on the red subway line for a bit. Then rode on an overly crowded bus filled with hikers for 40 minutes. I think everyone in the bus besides us were 40-60 years old...and everyone had major hiking gear! Total traveling timeto get to the mountain: 1.5 hrs.

We got maps and looked at the huge map of the mountain, but we couldn't figure out exactly what we were looking at or which direction we should hike. We figured we would just follow the sign that said "To summit." Plus most people seemed to hike in that direction.

When I say hike--I mean real, serious hiking! Yes, there were some dirt trails, but mostly we just climbed rocks. There was even a really steep part where we had to pull ourselves up with a knotted rope! It was awesome. Kinda scary and kinda difficult--but totally awesome! After hiking for what seemed like forever, we reached what appeared to be the peak with a restaurant (in picture above) and "cable car" or gondola down the mountain!! We ate lunch, treated ourselves to delicious Drumstick ice creams, and Fluke asked the owner where we were on the map...we hadn't even climbed over a mile yet!!! Even though the climb was steep, we hadn't traveled much horizontal distance! Looking past the restaurant we saw the peak that lie ahead. Without further ado, we continued on our hike!

In the picture you can see the tallest peak that we climbed in the background. We took this picture before we left the restaurant area.

When we reached our peak, we could see the highest peak of Mt. Palgongsan. We decided that it could wait for another trip. It was such an amazing day filled with beautiful views (cliche but totally true!) so we knew we would return. Plus, our friend Daryle was sick and couldn't join us last weekend. The pictures below show us on the second tallest peak! The tallest peak is about 3,900 feet tall so we weren't quite that high, but we were still really up there!