Daedunsan is a 878m high mountain, beautiful view, thrilling hike if you take the steep steel ladder
This mountain, Daedunsan is about a 3 hour drive from Geoje Island. We did this as part of our Jeonju trip, it was about 45-60mins drive from the city of Jeonju.
At Daedunsan, you have the choice of taking the cable car or hike up. But the cable car only takes you about halfway to the top!
I would recommend that you check the Cable car site before you head up there: http://daedunsancablecar.com/?lang=en
We went there on a Sunday in late October. Nice weather and the mountain was packed!
We started seeing cars parking a very long way from the gate, it looked like we won’t get a spot anywhere close to the park. Lucky us, there was a guy trying to help his customer to park, so we drove in and asked can we park here. He talked back in Korean but with very polite body language.
I pretended to understand, and guess all he tried to say is “if you eat it here you can park!”
We got there about lunchtime, so it was just the perfect time to eat! We don’t’ know what kind of food they have! They are serving great mushroom soup! For more info, please scroll down to read more about it at the bottom of this post.
After eating, we walked to the cable car station, walking up we passed many restaurants, most offering almost the same menus. One of them offered us some FRIED GINSENG, I haven’t seen that or tried that before!
Once you see the Daedunsan Hotel, the cable car station is behind that hotel.
The first thing that you have to do is run to get your cable car ticket! We got the round-trip ticket at 12,000won per person. You can hike up without a cable car but it might take 2-3 hrs to walk to the top!
The cable car runs every 5 minutes and it’s only a 3-4 minute ride. We had to wait about an hour for our turn!
*Our Cable car ticket is for ridding at 1.15 pm
I don’t think they care about “Social Distancing” inside the cable car.
It’s a short ride, less than 5 mins in a cable car, PETS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN CABLE CAR
Cable car station on top of the mountain.
Riding the cable car is only halfway to the top of Daedunsan. We have to walk for about another hour. There are many steps up, and many rocky paths to climb. It’s a good idea to bring your hiking sticks!
There are two ways to walk up. One is my favorite way to walk over the bridge and then up the steep steel ladders! Another way is just follow the rocky road up, this one is good if you are scared of heights.
*We picked to hike over the hanging bridge and to the Steep ladder!
The bridge bounces a little (DON’T JUMP!) and is suspended over a valley, it moves a little bit when you walk over it.
But it will give you a really nice view!
Next, it’s the highlight of this hike, THE STEEP STEEL LADDER!
This is what I called the highlight of this trip!
There are too many people between me and Tim, so I missed some good pictures on the bridge.
Once you started to step up, you can’t give up, you can’t turn! – YOU HAVE TO KEEP GOING! It’s ONE WAY walking up ONLY.
*Best spot to take picture of the ladder
My legs were shaking walking up that ladder, there is NO Safety Harness, you are on your own safety!
When we were on top, we can see the panorama view!
After this…it’s another 1/2 km to walk up to the top. It was hard, rocky, and we did a lot of climbing. I felt like I was a spider woman! It’s not easy, we almost gave up.
And finally, we are at the top, it’s an 878m high mountain!
WHAT A VIEW!
When we’re up on top of the mountain, we can see many Korean were flying drones over Daedunsan!
THEN…Walking back to the cable car station is another 40-50mins, it’s a little easier to walking down.
*On top of Cable car station where you can find something to eat and drink like Korean Instant noodles, Korean Pan cake…etc.
We had to wait for the cable car for about an hour again…
so our trip was …1 HOUR waiting for cable car up + 1 hour hiking up + 1 hour hiking down + 1 hour waiting for cable car down, and plus another 2 hrs for driving there and back to Jeonju City!
Overall, it was about 6hrs trip! And my workout app reported as 6.7km distance or about 98 floors walking up!
This is our best hiking in South Korea!
Mushroom Soup MUST TRY (where we parked our car today).
This meal is like we are having medicine soup!
The Mushroom restaurant “Daedunsan Gul” is where they let us park closer to the Daedunsan Cable Car Entrance (if we didn’t park here, we might have to park 1-2kms away!, it was a very long line of car parking on the day we visited Daedunsan)
The menu is in Korean, we just peeked at how it looks at the table next to us. There are many kinds of mushrooms, no meat, mild taste.
They also served this with rice and typically Korean side dishes.
It’s a great warm soup, perfect for the weather in October. It gave us enough energy to hike up the mountain for another 2-3 hrs!
This hike is part of our trip to Jeonju.
Read more about our Jeonju trip at https://www.somethingjam.com/jeonju-city-south-korea
