Entire Fortress Wall Hike

Over the last few months I have been posting about hiking on the Seoul Fortress Wall.  Russ and I have done small hikes around portions of the wall on a few different occasions, but it was my ultimate goal to hike the entire wall in one day.  The wall is about 18 km or a little over 11 miles around, it goes over 4 different mountains and through various parts of the city. 

About a month ago Russ took a Friday off we set off on this hike with a friend of mine. 

Setting off on our hike bright and early.

 In order to get to the wall we had to hike about 1.5 miles up a mountain behind our house. 

At this point my friend and I were already thinking this was maybe not such a good idea.   We weren't even to the actual start of the hike yet and we were really worn out. 

Since Russ and I had hiked the entire wall at different times we pretty much knew where we were going and didn't have to worry about looking for the signs as much.  But we were excited to see this first sign, which signaled the beginning of our Fortress Wall hike.

We took pictures at the top of every mountain for proof that we had made it up all of them.

At the top of the first mountain-Namsan

The wall runs right through the city.  It is cool to see the history mixed with the new buildings.

We may have made a pit stop along the way.

 The mountain to the right is where we are heading.

 You could climb up the steps or use the rope to pull up the rocks.  The rope way seemed the more exciting option of the two.

 A self portrait almost at the top of the second mountain.

At the top of the second mountain-Inwangsan

 The mountain in the distance is the third mountain we would hike that day.

Parts of the wall have been reconstructed numerous times.  It is cool to see all the different methods used to rebuild it.

We were really tired and would use "picture breaks" as reasons to stop and take a short rest. :)

 The climb up the third mountain was straight up a set of uneven stairs.  It was probably the most difficult part of the hike.

At the top of the third mountain was a nice place to take a short rest and have some lunch.  This portion of the hike goes around the back of the Blue House (the Korean president's house) so we had to get special badges in order to hike this portion.  The wall is lined with South Korean soldiers who keep an eye on everything that is happening around them.

At the top was this cool rock that we climbed up on top of to get a picture taken. 

Doing some work while we rested.

 At the top of the third mountain-Bugaksan

This was the tallest mountain we hiked for the day.  At this point we were about half way around the wall.

Straight down the steps on this side of the mountain.  Russ and I commented that it is almost more difficult to go down all the steps than it is to go up.  My knees kill me by the time we are at the bottom.

 In 1968, North Korea staged an assassination attempt on the president of South Korea.  They tried to break through the barriers of the wall in order to gain access to the presidential home.  The attempt was thwarted by the South Koreans but there was a shootout and the bullet holes from this event are still in a tree along the fortress wall. 

 There were still quite a few trees in bloom which made for a beautiful view as we looked back over the mountain we had just hiked.

 All around the Blue House the wall had this massive chain link fence beside it.  Took a little bit of the natural beauty away.

 We joked about what these signs meant:

No playing cards in the park

No dog poo in the park.

As I said in a previous post, Spring is very beautiful in Seoul.  The bushes along the wall were in full bloom and it made for some colorful hiking.

 At the top of the fourth mountain-Naksan

We had to hike right through the city and while my friend was taking a quick restroom break I may have found something to do to keep me occupied.

Patiently waiting.

 Because we started hiking the actual wall at the top of the first mountain we had to hike that mountian again in order to go all the way around the wall.  This side of mountain had a staircase stright up the mountain.  It wasn't as many stairs as the second mountain we climbed and the stairs were pretty even, but we were really tired and about ready to be done.

At the top of the first/fifth mountain for the day.  I was beat.  I counted the steps there were over 600 steps up this side of the mountain.

Looking back at the city we had just walked through.

Back next to the sign where we had started our Fortress Wall hike.

One last picture right before we got home.

 After showering and changing we went out to get some fast food.  This McDonald's cheeseburger was well deserved.

By the end of the day we had hiked a total of almost 14 miles (the wall is a little over 11 miles and it is about a 1.5 mile hike from our house to get to the wall each way), up 5 mountains, in about 7 hours and had burned almost 3000 calories (I wore my heart rate monitor the whole day).  It was a great day