Over a week ago, on the 15th, my wife and I made another hike up Pukhan mountain (which I briefly mentioned here a couple of days later). Our previous hike on the same trail had been cut short because we hadn’t been prepared for the ice. This time, we were prepared for any ice we might encounter, but there wasn’t much to speak of. We had planned to head to Dobong mountain this past Sunday, but there was rain all weekend from Saturday evening so we had to postpone.
At the top of Pukhan mountain lie the remains of an old wall that once protected the city of Seoul below. We hiked up to one of the gates, Daenammun. I chose this trail specifically because my wife hasn’t done any hiking or exercise in years. We started on the northwest side of the mountain. It’s about 5 km from our starting point to the gate, but the majority of the trail is relatively easy. It’s a series of mild and steep slopes, with several level spans in between. The last few hundred kilometers get rather rocky and steep. Many of the mountain paths around Seoul are more strenuous, so this seemed like a good place for my wife to get started.
On the way down, we headed down the southern slope. It’s just under 3 km, but is much steeper than the other side. In fact, I don’t think I’ve hiked such a consistently steep slope yet. I felt sorry for the people coming up. Still, I’m looking forward to going up that way myself in a couple of months. I’ll take my wife around to a few different mountains, to gradually more difficult trails, so that we can both build up for it. If we had time to go twice per week, we could hit it sooner. But she just started regular exercise this week and it will take a bit for her to build up her endurance for the hikes. I don’t think I’m ready for it just yet either after three months of no hiking and since I’ve gotten rather slack about my trips to the gym in the past few weeks.
Historically, Daenammun was the site of several battles over the centuries. I can’t imagine anyone slogging up those slopes just to fight at the top, but apparently there was quite a bit of it. I snapped a shot of a sign near the gate that gives a brief overview. It’s actually legible. In the Google online image viewer the link points to, click on the magnifying glass icon to zoom in, place the mouse pointer over the image, left click and drag to the left. You should be able to read the text clearly.
Some of the other pics we took are in the slideshow below. We didn’t snap any coming up the mountain, but got several around the gate and the on the way down.
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