I’m gonna save you some time here and just say – DON’T DO IT!
The long-story short is: For most of South Korea, from roughly February 15 – May 15 (and subsequently from roughly November 15 – December 15, most national park trails are closed due to fire prevention.
South Korea Fire Prevention Seasons
South Korea experiences two dry seasons during times you (or at least I) would not generally expect it to be a dry season.
Dry Season 1: Spring (Roughly Feb 15 – May 15)
Dry Season 2: Fall/Early Winter (Roughly Nov 15 – Dec 15)
During these periods, The Korea National Park Service closes numerous trails across the country. Not all the trails. Not one consistent time-period. And not necessarily with huge advance warning.
Which parks and trails are typically not affected by fire-control closures
These national parks are generally not closed during the spring/autumn fire prevention control periods:
- Dadohaehaesang
- Gayasan
- Gyeongju
- Hallyeohaesang
- Hallasan (Jeju Island)
- Taeanhaean
Two popular national parks, Bukhansan in Seoul, and Seoraksan near Sokcho, DO experience fire prevention control periods, but still have some trail access available, including:
- Bukhansan (Seoul’s National Park): Baegundae Peak
- Seoraksan: Ulsanbawi Rock, Biseondae Rock, and Biryong Falls
But for all of the above, there is always the chance for trail closures for other reasons (snow, avalanche, unexpected events) – so before planning a hike, you definitely need to check the specific trail access information.
Where to check for South Korea Trail Closures
As you can imagine, the only reliable source of up-to-date information for the South Korean trail closures is going to be the Korean National Park Service. The information is only in Korean, but the website encourages you to use your web-browsers built-in translation service for your language which will inevitably provide mixed results.
Here is an example of the real-time closure information of the various national parks showing which parks are completely closed, completely open, or have partial trail closures.
From this website, you can drill down into the specific national parks and look at the specific trail closures for the national park you are interested in.
Some National Parks, like Seoraksan National Park, will have a color-coded map that shows which trails are open or closed, like below:
However, to be honest, the website is not very consistent in my limited experience, and simply clicking on the various national park links will not necessarily take you straight to the trail closure information. You’ll usually first end up on the ‘homepage’ of the specific national park, and then need to view the “Park-specific notifications” to find the notice that mentions the “Notice of Temporary Trail Access Restriction”
The travel blog, The Girl with a Big Bag, actually helped us all out by creating a hyperlinked list of all the South Korean National Parks specific closure pages. I’m not going to steal her work – the link to her post is here:
How to Check Trail Closures in Korean National (The Girl with a Big Bag)
I only wish I had found her blog BEFORE I traveled to Korea and discovered the rrail closures.
What to know before hiking in Korea
This post is really just to help other hikers not make the mistake I did and plan out some epic hikes only to discover that you’re locked out because you decided to travel to Korea in April instead of May.
- Assume that MOST of the main trails for most national parks are closed between Feb 15 and early-mid May, and Nov 15 and Dec 15
- Always check the Korea National Park System website before going out on a hike for up-to-date trail closure information. (Use the links from The Girl with a Big Bag to quickly arrive at the right page for each park)
- Unrelated to trail closures, but just be aware how much South Korea LOVES stairs – so be prepared for long, steep stairs on their trails