In Gangwon’s peaceful peaks
In a country that’s mostly mountain and forest, exploring national parks amid the Buddhist culture of revering nature
When the tethered log finally strikes the massive bronze bell, it’s as if all other noises on Odaesan Mountain take a breath. Slowly, as the achingly pure tone fades, other sounds return, including the gentle clamor of branches and leaves slapping together in the wind.
The temple bell rings; the forest applauds.
They are natural sounds, although not the sounds that naturally come to mind when most Western travelers think of South Korea. The sprawling, throbbing metropolis of Seoul — and its symphony of industry, traffic, construction, markets and K-Pop music — dominate perception. But could it be that the true nature of South Korea, where roughly 90 percent of the land is mountainous and more than 60 percent is forest, could be, well, nature?
I had driven two hours east of Seoul into the mountains of Gangwon Province, seemingly the best place to explore the country’s national parks and forests, as well as to experience the Buddhist culture that been a partner and caretaker of the land for more than a thousand years.
And maybe to get a sneak peak before this winter, when Gangwon and its nature are discovered by the world.
The Taebaek Mountains are the thorny, forest-covered spine that runs up the east side of the Korean Peninsula, including well into North Korea. It’s also home to two of the country’s most popular protected areas, Odeasan and Seoraksan national parks (the boundary of Seoraksan is less than 20 miles from one of South Korea’s most popular attractions — the DMZ at the North Korean border).
Despite averaging about 3,000 feet (topping out in Gangwon at 5,600 feet) the Taebaek Mountains are home to many of the country’s ski resorts and winter sports parks — which will play a starring role in February when the 2018 Winter Olympics are in Pyeongchang, just down the road from Odaesan National Park.
The rest of the year, however, Gangwon is a mix of laid-back mountain and coastal towns — a refuge for urban dwellers seeking a slower pace, and a sightseeing spot for tourists (mostly Korean) planning to wander among the natural wonders.
The province, which is about the same land area as New Jersey, has its share of man-made oddities — including a strangely comprehensive museum in Gangneung dedicated to Thomas Edison and the Gramophone — but I’m here to see the original scenery and explore what used to be considered skyscrapers before there was steel and glass.
The first night at Woljeongsa Temple, I watched the rain for an hour, surprised at how quickly I didn’t miss TV, Instagram or email when facing a mountain forest outside the wood-frame paper doors.
Odaesan National Park is about 20 miles inland from the coastal town of Gangneung and the Sea of Japan, and a few miles inside the park itself is Woljeongsa, a Buddhist temple complex founded in the fifth century. Woljeongsa offers a temple-stay program; visitors seeking insight, serenity or just affordable, zero-frills accommodations are allowed to bed down for the night in guest housing. (Except there isn’t really a bed so much as a comfy pad, a thick blanket and a heated cement floor.)
The program offers varying levels of participation in prayers,
rituals and duties, but I chose the option that offered time and freedom to explore Odaesan park and the other temples that seem as much a part of nature as the rocks and trees. Meals are included, which gave me a chance to get familiar with a more natural vegetarian fare, mostly vegetables, soup, rice, various forms of tofu and, of course, kimchi.
There are subtle reminders that this is a working temple, not just a static shrine — among them the dining hall, a brightly lit cafeteria with kitchen and a cleaning station where diners, including templestay guests, do their own dishes. You pull your own weight. Also, meals are not for lingering: Breakfast started at 6:30 a.m., but by 6:50 I was eating alone. There’s work to be done.
Much of the wood-and-stone temple complex, notched into a valley next to a river, seems to fit in with the heavily forested mountains around it. Although as ancient as it looks, all of it had to grow back — another common bond with the surrounding fir tree forest — after all of it was bombed, burned and flattened during the Korean War.
Eventually, they recovered together.
“In most of the world, man is in competition with nature,” said Jeong Deung, the woman assigned to show me around the temple grounds and explain the culture. “Buddhists learn from it, try to work with it.”
The trail to Jeongmyeolbogung is a dauntingly steep switchback path that climbs through the forest — and is lined the entire way with the volleyball-size, brightly colored Buddha lanterns that fill temple courtyards and line many of the park’s hiking trails. Somehow, they didn’t seem out of place among the endless firs. Maybe it was the image on the side of the gently smiling Buddha emerging from a lotus flower. Embraced by nature.
While I passed Sajaam Temple, a multistory structure with tiered roofs that followed the profile of the hillside, it began to sink in how much the Buddhism and the land are intertwined in this national park. It occurred to me that visitors can thank the temples for having made preservation and protection of the land a priority centuries before that became a concern in most cultures.
Closer to the top, the forest thinned and the horizon — rows of rolling peaks and hills — popped into view, carpeted in 20 shades of green. It was the only time I stopped when I didn’t need the rest. (I tried to imagine that the monks also have to stop frequently and use the time to contemplate, but each of the robed walkers with whom I exchanged bows was clearly moving faster than I was. )
At the top, I must have looked more weary — or more Western — than other hikers. The woman at the information hut offered the requisite paper cup with hot tea that smelled of fig, and some sweet bean-curd pieces that they give to all visitors who reach the mountaintop Jeongmyeolbogung, a shrine of Woljeongsa Temple that shelters a relic of the Buddha himself, one of the few in Korea.
But then she checked to see if anyone was watching and quickly dug out the junk food — two packages of chocolate-coated “creme cookies.” I laughed: It was the least natural food I could think of. I tried to pay, but she refused and smiled. I placed my palms together and bowed, as I had done toward the shrine a minute earlier. Up to this point, it had pained me to not understand and not be understood, but looking at her broad, kind grin, it occurred to me that language often just gets in the way.
On first approach to Seoraksan National Park, the sheer volume of tourists arriving on buses was worrisome.
During a detour to Pyeongchang, the county hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics, I had found the “natural beauty” heavily developed at the two sprawling ski resorts of Alpensia and Yongpyong, where most of the events will be. While I was glad that TV viewers would see a side to South Korea other than urban Seoul, I also was glad I hadn’t planned to spend time there.
At Seoraksan, I was concerned that the popularity and accessibility would detract from the nature. But after I entered the park and as the broad valley opened up, some of the greatest hits of the Taebaek Mountains came into view, and the crowds dissipated. This is their Yosemite, I thought — enough different diversions to spread out visitors.
I would have been content to explore the valley, but I was intent on hiking up to Ulsan Bawi, a wall of six bulbous granite peaks that is the park’s best-known geologic oddity. It turned out the real oddity is the many different natural settings along the trail — through meadows, along the river, into the forest and, of course, past temples, including one carved into the rock, flanked by prayers chiseled into the granite surfaces.
Eventually, the trail gave way to steel stairs and railings up the side of the cliffs.
I considered that the stairs bolted to the cliffs might take away from the natural beauty, but then remembered that because of them, I was able to reach out and feel a granite wall — to touch nature and examine it up close — in a way that would otherwise be impossible without climbing gear.
I could for a moment cling to sheer rock just above the tree line, where gnarled trees sprouted from wrinkles in the cranky granite face.
After what seemed like more stairs than in a Seoul skyscraper, I walked out on a ledge to see the rest of Ulsan Bawi, an oversize jagged wall, seemingly built to defend against invading armies or monsters.
From my angle, though, it also resembled a place of peace — not a temple this time, but a tall cathedral. One worn down by wind and rain, but still worthy of reverence.
I gazed for a while in silence, hearing only the stiff breeze blowing through the trees below and over the rocks. Nature applauding.