My visit to the Namhansanseong Fortress (During Korean New Year)

As the title suggests, the fortress is located in Namhansanseong (남한산성) and is located on top of a mountain.  I went there with a couple friends as part of a little hiking trip.  The fortress is famous for being the mountain castle of Korea.  It was the king's emergency castle and it was also difficult to reach.  Eventually the castle was burned down and a replica now stands where the original once stood.  The hike was nice but I advise against hiking up to the fortress in winter unless you are well prepared for the icy trails.  I fell several times and in some spots, slipping and falling could mean sliding all the way down the mountain...and it isn't guaranteed you will make it to the bottom intact.  The total hike time from the bottom to the fortress was a little over an hour and a half and walkingn to the entrance of the hiking trail from the train was another half hour.  It was steep and there were many, many staircases to climb up but the sights were worth it in the end.  The fortress was hard to find since 1) it is a fortress hidden in the mountains and 2) Once we got through the main wall, there was a hanok village surrounding the village.  The hanok village is inhabitable and people do live there.
Hanok Village - an area made up of very traditional style Korean homes.  Hanok style homes are very expensive to make these days and therefore, the homes themselves are sold at very high prices.

Here is close to the beginning of the hike.  This scene is maybe 5 minutes in.  There were a lot of these yards.  What it is, is that monks come to these places to balance rocks and it makes these beautiful looking rock sculpture gardens.  

A little further inot the hike.  This was a more narrow path at the beginning and there was a map showing where we were and far away the fortress was.  I couldn't get any closer to the sign because the path was completely frozen and too slippery to walk on.

about 1/3rd or 1/4th of the way up was this Buddhist temple with paper lanterns and really nice artwork around the outside.  The temple was really pretty but since it was Korean New Year, there were rituals being performed in the temple and I couldn't enter.  

This is one of many staircases.  It is so long it fades into the mountain in this picture but it actually turns and there are 4 more rows of stairs.  It was the highest staircase to climb there and the highest I have ever climbed.  

Finally, after a little over an hour of hiking, we made it to the top of the mountain and reached the entrance to the fortress.  Its hard to tell but the ground was frozen in that tunnel and I fell hard in there.  It was hard to get up too since it was really slippery haha.

Walking along a little more once I got into the fortress and I saw this amazing view.  It overlooks the Gyeonggi province.  The sight was a lot better in person than the picture can show.  I highly recommend hiking the fortress and experiencing the view yourself.  

Here are some pictures of the hanok village a little down from the last picture.  People live in some and others are shops.  There are several under construction currently and they are pretty close to the fortress which was kind of cool.  

This was the entrance gate to the fortress.  As you can see, it was closed when I went and that's because it was Korean New Year and everyone had the day off (4 days off actually.  Korean New Year is from Friday - Monday and work resumes on Tuesday again).

This was the best shot I could get of the fortress.  Even from far away, It was still a magnificent sight.  By this point I had fallen so many times I felt both sore and numb but seeing this fortress and the view from its security wall were amazing.  

Here is a little video I took from the wall