North Mountain...

...is the day hike straight out of Hades. Very hard. It's Uphill both ways and doesn't have any switchbacks or mercy for your knees (or hands). As you can see it's only 3.3 kilometers to the peak of North Mountain which is Baek-Un-Dae. I don't care how the national park service tries to transliterate the Korean to English--I'm right.


Above is the trail maker at the start of the trail.


This is a pretty good picture of the peak. After this you're at the base of the last peak prior to the final push for the top.


This is a wall that's near the summit of the mountain. It's actually part of a fortress that is at the top. It would pretty much suck to have to try to attack the fortress. I can't imagine climbing up the mountain in armor and then having to try and climb this wall while being poked in the eye by arrows or swords or something.


The last part of the climb is pretty hands on because it's so steep, it requires the use of steady feet and pulling on steel cables as you ascend. It was also a Saturday afternoon, which means that half of Korea was on that flipping mountain, as you can see.


This is the summit of a nearby peak. You can only get to it by scaling the face and there are lots of rock climbing routes to get to the top.