Having spent many years living in Asia, I had never been to Korea. It has just never come up through work, but it was still surprising, especially given the obvious amount of climbing accessible to Seoul. So it was that in May 2024 that we booked flights and a hotel and headed to South Korea with very little knowledge on where to climb.
Seoul is big. It sprawls with a population of 10m people, but thankfully a very accessible public transport system. The instruction we had was to head for Bukhansan UI on the train, then walk round the corner to wait for a taxi to take us up to the park entrance. This worked and we were soon in a broken english conversation with a nice retired fellow, who was working as a walking guide.
From the big buddha, we walked uphill for a while before getting confused about how to head up to the crag. Eventually some young lads pointed to a hole in the fence and the trail kicked uphill though broken slabs and loose paths. There were climbers everywhere at the base. It seems a feature of Korean climbing is groups of five, with one leader and mixed abilities. This led to a lot of conversation, but also confusion about what routes would be free. This wasn't helped by the messages on our phones suggesting rain by 2pm.
An easy route to the summit on the right side of the crag was chosen to que in - Go-Deok Wei Gil (5.8). This route goes to the summit from Bukhansan from where an abseil or two would lead us back to the trail. Eventually we got on the route, which was excellent, with very good protection and bolted belays. Great arms full of rock weaving up the edge of the mountain for some 600 feet.
The plan was to abseil after a few pitches, but we were soon six pitches up and heading for the top seemed the plan. We were sucked in. By pitch seven, it started to rain, which made the polished holds very slippery. By pitch eight, it was a full on raining and a few points of aid were needed on the last pitch. We were saved by the #3 and #4 camalots. It was now properly raining and all the climbers who had been around us suddenly disappeared. The choice was eight abseils down the route, or over the top and a couple of abseils. So up we went over greasy slabs and muddy paths.
The summit was a whiteout and raining a very heavily. Unfortunately, the summit is very complex and no descent was obvious. Eventually I found a couple of bolts and decided to abseil from these to see if there was a way down. It was raining very heavily. 50m down, I found another set of bolts and called down Mandy and pulled down the ropes. I didn't know if there was one abseil, or 10 below us. By the third abseil, we were in a full storm. I could see this was going to be a big experience. "Mandy, this is going to be ok". I think I was telling myself this by speaking out loud.
Eventually the clouds cleared and I could see we were in the middle of a huge wall, with a huge roof below us. That felt like the point of no-return. By the final two abseils, we were on a 50 degree river running down the wall. When we got to the last station. I threw the ropes down and they were carried away in a river. Back on the ground, it was getting dark and we still had a long way to go.
Back at the trailhead there were no taxis. At least ones that would take us. So we walked out to Bukhansan UI. The round trip walk for the day was more than 20km. Back on the train, we sat in pools of water, drawing strange looks from the Saturday night drunks. The final 1km back to the hotel was not easy. Showers and dry clothes saw us in a fried chicken store. We went back up two days later, but that is another story.
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