lost or what?

The Hoeryong station area is surrounded by shop filled streets, and more blossoms.

The actual station is very large, the monorail joins onto it here too.

I got to inspect the monorail track on my walk from the subway station to the actual start of the trail, It is probably about 1km away. I guess you could get closer on the monorail.

There are my mountains for today. They look strangely far away in this photo, despite the trail starting just under those freeway overpasses in the centre of this shot.

Soon after the trail started, it was time for rocks and purple flowers.

It did not take too long to start getting some altitude, allowing a good view of the hundreds of identical apartment buildings below.

There were quite a few people around near the bottom, many come just up to this view then go back. I had to wait my turn.

Some view.

More view. The rocky mountain across the valley is Dobongsan, which I climbed last time I was here, and once before before that too! It is one of the more dangerous climbs you can do in Seoul.

Last one of the view for now. The haze is kind of nice.

There are many fortifications in the hills.

I still had a way to go, but those ridges here are the way I would come down.

Another fortification signalled the first peak of sorts. There is barbed wire in the entry but it would not take much to pull it out and go in. I think they mainly want to stop people from illegally camping in them.

Lots of going up and down over steep rocks today.

View from the next peak, which I assume is Dojeongbong, looking further away from Seoul.

My big fat head. Not too sweaty today due to the lack of sun.

Redundant view.

My next target, Suraksan.

You can go down that way too. There are a lot of trails and I had to keep checking my map to make sure I was on the trail I needed to get me to my desired destination.

It was basically rocky the whole way today, a great workout for your metatarsals.

These people decided to see if a photo is worth dying for.

Hmm, I guess I will not be going that way. This was not really a problem as the way around it meets up again soon after.

By avoiding the roped off cliff climb I instead got to enjoy, a staircase.

Today's helicopter landing pad. These are strategically placed so that North Korea can easily land troops on every mountain surrounding Seoul and take up sniper positions.

And then I arrived at the summit of Suraksan, where an intrepid soul had lugged up an esky full of ice creams for sale.

The view. Rocks, clouds, white apartment buildings.

The view the other way, and the assembled junk of the ice cream salesman.

To start my descent, another staircase.

But still, many more rocks to clamber over or around.

Nice clouds.

Around this point I got a bit lost, I thought the trail would surely include this cave, but this was not the trail.

I abseiled down using the provided rope, but there was no trail to be seen.

I pondered the view while getting my bearings, then went back up the rope.

After I walked around a bit, I found the trail again. Complete with a rope fence and a view sign.

Eventually I started on a long man made trail down of... more rocks.

So many rocks.

A lot of people would like to take a photo of this huge rock, so the park authorities stuck a huge yellow sign in front of it.

I realised I was getting nearer the bottom when a bird trap appeared.

But fear not, still more rocks! A glacial flow of rocks from pre-history!

Then to join the rocks were some puddles of spring water.

Finally I arrived back at civilisation, I was greeted by a pole full of optic fibre termination boxes.

And of course, the OBLIGATORY temple, the first one of this trip? That is all for now.