Hiking advice

[hulk]

hey guys,
Planning on a hike across Jirisan national park later this month but having done no overnight hiking in Korea I am wondering what facilities are available at the shelters. Probably quite different to NZ.
So can someone give me an idea on what to expect. Is there drinkable water? Can you use a camping stove? (someone told me that wasn't cool in the national parks), can you rent blankets? do you need to book a space?

Cheers,
James

[skinsk]

Let's see. . . it's been 7 years. . . but Oct 99 I spent the better part of a week in Jirisan. . . not too crowded. . . I didn't book anything in advance but stayed at mountain huts. . . I think blankets and/or mats are generally available for an extra W1000 or 2. . . a space in the shelter is W5,000. As in the US, stoves are allowed; campfires are not. Most huts have cooking areas; some have communal kitchens. Most have food (ramyon) drinks (water, soju, beer, maybe pocari sweat, coffee--er copy). I'd bring a mat (wooden bunks), sleeping bag or sheets at least and stove. . . but use your own judgement balancing weight and necessity/luxury.

The webpage for Jiri is: http://www.knps.or.kr/chiri/eng/main.htm
The main Nat'l Park page lista the cooking restrictions, but it looks like the shelters for Jirisan all allow cooking.

Look for bears! Take photos!!

[firepink]

Three things -

1. Would Chuseok be a good time to go to Jiri-san, or would it be way too overcrowded? I'm thinking of doing a 5 day trek from Hwaeom-sa to Daewon-sa, hitting up Piagol Valley and Banya-bong along the way.

2. Let's play "Good idea/Bad idea": hiking alone as a foreign girl with very little knowledge of Korean (but armed with a turned-off cell phone and a Lonely Planet phrasebook!)

3. The English page for Korean National Parks is now http://english.knps.or.kr/, and the Jiri-san page is http://jiri.knps.or.kr/Jirisan%5Feng/

[skinsk]

Did a weeklong mid-Oct hike solo when I was much newer to Korea. No problem whatsoever (unless you actually see one of those imported bears:eek8: ). . . (I actually ran into another woman at that time!! I did, however, go during my school's mid-term week, not Chuseok. I think if you go deeper, you'll find less crowds, and there are plenty of mountain huts (get there early, drop your stuff, run off light up the various trails). . . near the entrances, etc it'll be a zoo. Spent the last two Chuseoks at Seoraksan and managed to get away from the hordes at least part of the time, do all the climbing routes we planned and more, and ran into KOTRers left and right last year!! Go for it! Bring a sleeping pad and ear-plugs!

[shanja]

The huts in Jirisan are likely to be super crowded and noisy at that time. Not a big issue as you can usually get at least floor space if the bunks are all gone, but it will be significantly colder than anywhere else in Korea. You can rent blankets for 5000won a night I think, if you don't wanna carry a sleeping bag, buying food at the huts is ridiculously expensive...take your own! Ummm hiking solo should be safe, can't see why not. The route yu are thinking of is really nice, and noot too busy in many sections. Sweet plan.

[isipau]

Did a weeklong mid-Oct hike solo when I was much newer to Korea. No problem whatsoever (unless you actually see one of those imported bears:eek8: ). . . (I actually ran into another woman at that time!! I did, however, go during my school's mid-term week, not Chuseok. I think if you go deeper, you'll find less crowds, and there are plenty of mountain huts (get there early, drop your stuff, run off light up the various trails). . . near the entrances, etc it'll be a zoo. Spent the last two Chuseoks at Seoraksan and managed to get away from the hordes at least part of the time, do all the climbing routes we planned and more, and ran into KOTRers left and right last year!! Go for it! Bring a sleeping pad and ear-plugs!

There are 9 shelters along the ridge in Jirisan. With the exception of Jeseok Shelter, most of the others are simply a floor and four walls--no bedding supplies and maybe some limited food or drink options (like coffee and ramen). You can use your trail stove in the shelters, but not outside them. There are springs for drinking water near all of the shelters. But good luck reserving a place at one of them. If you go to the Korean National Park website, there's a seemingly helpful page that tells you to make reservations via email. However, if you send an email to the provided address, it will come back. The address is invalid. There is a phone number, too. I called it and it was a wrong number. Eventually I tracked down the correct number and got the park service people, who informed me that foreigners cannot make shelter reservations because a national ID number is needed to log into the internet reservation system (which doesn't even appear on the English part of the website). The only way to do it is to have a Korean make the reservations on their name. You have to do it quite a ways in advance, too, because these shelters fill up 3-4 weeks before.

If anybody can tell me a better way to do this, PLEASE let me know. I'm getting weary of crashing clandestinely in the woods, hoping I don't get caught and fined.

[isipau]

Firepink--

Your Chuseok trip sounds great. You can do that hike in 3 days, however, if you pack a good pace. Also, Chuseok is the absolute busiest holiday in Korea. The mountains will be packed. You would have needed to reserve shelter space a month ago, if that's what you were planning. If you haven't, you may have to crash in the forest illegally.