The Golden Buddha of Bukhansan: Part 2

Click here to read Part 1 of this post if you haven't already.

After we finished gawking at the giant buddha, we continued climbing the nearby mountains.

The path became steep and gnarly.

We lost our group around this point, and decided to do the rest of the adventure by ourselves. We found part of Bukhansan Fortress's wall.

Momentarily lost in the undergrowth.

The views became ever more majestic as we saw the mountains extending south towards Seoul.

Pretty sure this is the area around Gupabal, in the northern outskirts of Seoul.

Continuing the climb.

We were rewarded with a wonderful view of the Golden Buddha again.

It looked especially beautiful from up here, surrounded by the mountains. We could hear the drone of a Buddhist monk chanting through loudspeakers near the statue and echoing around the valley. It was one of those truly magical "Yep. I'm in Asia right now..." moments.

We would have liked to have stayed near the Buddha all day, but we had to make a move on.

Reaching the summit of this particular peak, which we didn't catch the name of.

Resting on the rocks.

Our goal now was to head down the other side of the mountain and return to Gupabal.

Descents are nearly always trickier than ascents, and this side of the mountain was steeper than the one we'd climbed up. We had to use railings to help us get down some of the more treacherous sections.

Angela takes a stumble.

Angela hurt her ankle as we went down, which made the descent a little tough-going at times.

Fortunately it levelled out a little and the path turned to stairs.

Before long, we were back at the flat, paved path we started out on.

Heading back to Gupabal.

I'd been waiting to go on an exciting hiking adventure for some time, and this one did not disappoint. The Golden Buddha lived up to all my expectations, and it felt so liberating to climb among the gorgeous, green mountains of Bukhansan.