Gwanaksan Hike

Gwanaksan (관악산, or 冠岳山 in Chinese characters) is located on the southern edge of Seoul, forming part of the boundary between Seoul city and the neighbouring province of Gyeonggi-do. It is standing at 632m.

It offers a good combination of being very convenient but still getting up to a good height above the city; it’s also home to some beautiful temples, and the city views are awesome on a clear day.

Gwanaksan is therefore very popular with the legions of Seoul hikers and the trails and viewpoints can get pretty crowded on weekends in fair weather; try to hike it on a weekday if you can.

I propose to go up on west side from Seoul National University station (line 2, exist 3) and down to east side from Gwacheon station (line 4).

Roughly speaking, each of the routes takes around 90 minutes to 2 hours one way. We can spend a while at the summit enjoying the views and checking out the temple buildings, so as a rough guide you can probably expect a maximum of 4 to 5 hours hike.