There are dozens of mountains named Bonghwasan in South Korea, but this one is special.
The Bonghwasan I’d like to introduce you to today is the one at the heart of Suncheon-si, Jeollanam-do. It’s the very best Bonghwasan there is.
There is no other mountain that is much a part of my trail running story: no peak that I climbed as often and no peak that had as much impact on me. Living in Suncheon for a one-year period between October 2015 and October 2016, I ran on Bonghwasan 119 times. Then I came back to visit my favorite mini mountain seven more times in the years thereafter.
Bonghwasan – A storied history
Any Bonghwasan you meet on the Korean peninsula has strategic importance. Usually, these peaks are prominent, with other peaks visible in multiple directions. This gives a hint about how these mountains were once used, and how they got their name. Bonghwa means signal fire in Korean, and these mountains were once used to send messages far and wide.
Long before our Bonghwasan became a favored local spot for running, walking and picnicking, it, too, served this important purpose. Remnants of this purpose can be found on the peak, where there is an old cairn and watchtower. Bonghwasans are clutch, and not just to us!
What made this mountain so integral to our own story is actually more of a when. When we moved to Suncheon that fall, we had just started trail running in earnest. Trail running felt like home to both Kent and I: we’d merged our twin passions of road running and nature hiking into one dream sport, and we wanted to do it all the time.
Enter Bonghwasan! Although we completely missed it on our very first run in our new home, nearly every single run thereafter featured the peak or the slopes below it. Bonghwasan was about to become our best friend.
At first, Bonghwasan was mainly a weekday training ground. Shortly after moving to Suncheon, we began a quest that would take us to all of Korea’s national parks. This mission devoured every weekend for the first few months of our time in South Jeolla.
But then we signed up for our first ultramarathon! The 2016 Korea 50k would take place the following April, and we knew we had to get serious about training for it.
So we called a halt to our mountain mission, shelving it until after the ultra. In January 2016, we began a weekly routine of runs that had us going farther and getting stronger in preparation for our big race.
Bonghwasan was a perfect setting for this. It has a dullegil: a walking course on the lower slopes that completely encircles the mountain. It’s pure trail: a 10 kilometer-long, undulating dirt ribbon with a variety of scenery. We started out by simply running laps of this loop, adding to our distance.
Later, we’d also run up to tag the peak as well, sometimes more than once! At 355 meters, Bonghwasan’s summit is pretty modest. However, it offers tremendous views of Suncheon city in every direction! If you’re out to practice climbing, there are many ways up that you can combine into one big effort.
As these were the early days, both of our mountain mission and of our training, we weren’t nearly so fanatical about taking pictures of everything as we are now. In its own way, it was very pure: we were simply running around the mountain! Many years later, I wish we’d taken more snapshots so I could relive our runs there and share these slopes with you.
But there were also logistical reasons for taking precious few photos: we would start long before dawn on our longest training runs – and dawn comes late in the middle of winter in Korea. Our first lap of the dullegil was often entirely in darkness. On the second lap, we’d shiver in the coldest hours of the night until the sun finally rose over other mountains and shone down on us.
Mountain Marathon-ing on Bonghwasan
By March 2016, we’d ramped up to run a full marathon on our mountain. On March 6th, we did it: the KnC Bonghwasan mountain marathon! At nearly eight hours, it was our longest run to date! We’d also racked up 2,000 meters of climbing over our 42.6 kilometers.
This was something to be proud of, but we were just getting started! The following weekend, we ran just over 45 kilometers in a similar amount of time – our very first ultra! We ran one more mountain marathon near the end of March and felt powerful. It really felt like we were trail runners now, and it was hard to imagine going back to road running.
We were extremely consistent with our running routine, which involved three shorter mid-week runs plus two multi-hour long runs on the weekends. Even more than our mountain marathons, I credit this consistency with really turning us into ultra athletes. We kept this up for nearly four months, until our ultra date drew near.
Afterwards, we’d decided that we would get back on track with our mountain mission. We’d stay just as active – but on the go! There were many more national parks to visit, and we had half a year remaining on our contracts in Suncheon. Plus, somewhere along the way we’d decided to visit all of Korea’s provincial parks as well…
No place like home training grounds
All of this meant we had less time to spend on our Bonghwasan later in 2016. We were back to spending weekends away from home, and that limited our local mountain adventures to weekdays. But that didn’t mean Bonghwasan was not special to us: I treasured our mountain, and spent my birthday morning on its peak! At some point, we also realized that we could half of a loop, then descend to Starbucks pretty easily on a weekday morning before classes. To say that was game-changing is a definite understatement!
Later that summer, we signed up for a second ultra: the inimitable, once-in-a-lifetime Ultra Trail Mt. Jiri! But this time, we were determined to train on the go. If there had been one flaw in our careful approach to our first ultra, it was that we focused too much on adding distance and not enough on gaining elevation.
So it seemed like our dual missions – successfully completing a 50k race and visiting all of Korea’s national and provincial parks – would work well together. Still, we kept coming back to Bonghwasan to make sure we made up our midweek mileage. Plus, some of our mission mountains were distinctly not runnable, so Bonghwasan stepped in again to make sure we kept up our cardiovascular training.
We were able to tackle our big mountain mission – and some specificity training on the UTMJ course – without missing a beat, thanks to all of our strong training earlier in the year on Bonghwasan. Now we were ranging far and wide with our new trail skills, but our strength had been built at home.
A few last looks
When it was time to leave Suncheon, we were ready for a new adventure. But we were not nearly so ready to leave our Bonghwasan! It felt surreal to run our last run on the mountain before we packed up our lives and moved on.
And maybe that’s because wound up coming straight back! After our Climbs & Creatures trip to South America, we went straight back to Suncheon in December 2016, just to run and hang out. We were back on our mini mountain once again in January 2017, in between gigs in Malaysia and Korea’s Gangwon province.
Even after we settled in in Inje – which came its own very special mountain, Giryongsan – we kept returning to Bonghwasan: in February and March, then again in December of 2017.
Our last visit was February 24th, 2018. In town for the wedding of some dear friends, we were also there for our mountain. We couldn’t resist a run up and around our beautiful Bonghwasan for old times’ sake.
Know and Go! Suncheon Bonghwasan
Transportation
Get thyself to Suncheon city in South Jeolla province first. It’s well connected to other cities across the country by rail (including KTX!) and bus. The city of Suncheon is built around Bonghwasan, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble spotting it once you arrive. There’s no official starting point to the dullegil, and there are multiple routes to the summit. Start where it suits you.
Hike & Run
There are two types of mission for you on Suncheon Bonghwasan.
One is a dullegil (walking course) around the mountain that’s about 10 kilometers in length. This route gently undulates around the mid-level mountain slopes and passes through various types of forest, a few orchards and a handful of parks. The dullegil can be started from any of the trails leading onto Bonghwasan, and followed for as long as you desire. You can do a full circle, half-lap or multiple loops depending on your goals and stamina!
The other mission is a climb to the peak! The most runnable (even bikeable!) way to do this is from the west on Bonghwasan-gil. This gravel road begins in Yongdang-dong (neighborhood) and is closed to all but official traffic. But this is only one route up – there are plenty of others, including steeper and more challenging routes.
I highly recommend catching a sunrise or sunset from Bonghwasan. Due to its prominence, the peak (and a handful of places on the dullegil, too) have tremendous views of the sky.
Unless there’s been snow, winters can be a bit bleak if you’re not used to the Korean winter palate. Some find summers in the south of the peninsula a little steamy – though I personally love them. So to see this Bonghwasan at it’s best, I recommend a hike in spring or fall to catch the color changes on the mountain. My personal favorite was hiking in late April and catching the amazing azalea display!
Stay & Eat
Based in Suncheon during most of our Bonghwasan adventures, we were fortunate to live at the foot of the mountain! That certainly made doing all of our early morning runs on the mountain pretty convenient. We tried to recreate this easy access when we came back to visit after moving on. To do so, we stayed in one of the many cheap motels near Suncheon Express Bus Terminal – just across the Dongcheon stream from Bonghwasan, basically.
For good eats, there is your usual array of Korean food restaurants in town. Since we lived in Suncheon, we mostly cooked for ourselves. But we were known to enjoy a bibimbap or two as well, though I don’t have any particular places to recommend for you. Remember that packing a picnic is always a wonderful way to while away a day on the mountain – highly recommended!
Other Notes
Kent and I enjoyed the summit and slopes of Bonghwasan 126 times! Our first visit was in March 2016, and our most recent in February 2018. Our routes varied in length from simple 5ks to the summit (or a nearby Starbucks) to loops of over 40 kilometers!
Bonghwasan is a classic secret summit: you won’t find this mountain on any list of famous mountains, and it’s not part of a national or provincial park. Indeed, you’re unlikely to encounter it unless you live in Suncheon yourself – or you’ve got a thing for mini mountains.
Bonghwasan might be mini, with a peak standing at just 355 meters, but it is prominent and has tremendous Suncheon city views.
If you want more peaks off the beaten path, check out more of these secret summits!
We may have climbed more than a hundred mountains in South Korea, including multiple other Bonghwasans, but Suncheon Bonghwasan will always stand out. It’s got a special place in my heart, and deserves credit for helping me build a strong trail running foundation when I lived at its base. I’d love to go back to Bonghwasan again one day, and see if I can remember all the funny names we made for different sections of the trail. To take one more last look from its splendid summit lookout.
