48 Hours in Worak Mountain — 48 Hours Spent at the Foot of Mt. Worak
48 Hours In Worak Mountain — 48 Hours Spent at the Foot of Mt. Worak
A two-day, one-night journey drifting through wide lakes and the quiet clouds halfway up the mountain
Words Parc Jinmyoung
Photos Son Dongju
14:00 Mt. Worak, Check-in
With stone floors, wooden walls, and a round staircase leading up to a lobby where your gaze meets the sky, it feels as though you’ve entered a man-made version of Mt. Worak itself. First opened in 1999, Woraksan Youth Hostel reopened in July 2021 after remodeling its first and second floors. While the exterior remains just as it was more than 20 years ago, the interior has been given a modern touch, and the hostel has been gaining buzz on social media for its photo spots that preserve its heritage while appealing to younger generations. Reservations open on the 1st of every month, and it’s truly a battle to secure one — when September’s bookings opened, rooms sold out in just three minutes. Room options include doubles, six-person dormitories, pet-friendly rooms, and the log ‘Cabin House,’ which can accommodate up to five guests. Step into a room and you’ll find 1 tea and tools prepared with ‘Wolhaboy,’ along with 2 eco-friendly amenities from ‘Tone28’ neatly arranged — sustainable touches can be found throughout every corner of the hotel.
1 A specialty shop for pu-erh tea and tea tools, Wolhaboy produces tea leaves dried using natural wind and sunlight. Its eco-friendly packaging, designed to reduce carbon emissions, is also worth noting.
2 The world’s first cosmetics brand to develop paper packaging. It considers the environmental impact of every step, from production to disposal.
On an afternoon still too sunny to feel like autumn, we decided to spend some time at the pool. Facing the front of Mt. Worak’s Yeongbong Peak and overlooking Cheongpung Lake flowing below, the pool has reopened after having its facilities replaced and its surfaces repainted. Though little else has changed, the vibrant scenery of Mt. Worak lends it an entirely new atmosphere. If you get hungry while swimming, try ordering a pizza. The Korean restaurant once known as ‘Garamgwa Moe’ serves pepperoni and mushroom pizza, packaged in paper takeout containers so you can enjoy it poolside. The restaurant is currently undergoing renovations set to be completed by the end of this year. Starting mid-December, it will reportedly operate as a brunch café during the day and a wine bar in the evening.
1372 Worak-ro, Hansu-myeon, Jecheon-si, Chungcheongbuk-do
Reservations for the following month open at 9 a.m. on the 1st of each month
17:00 How to Enjoy Jecheon, City of Clear Wind and Bright Moon
Cheongpungmyeongwol, meaning ‘clear wind and bright moon,’ is a phrase that suits Jecheon perfectly. At its heart lies Cheongpung Lake, where a crisp breeze ripples gently across the water’s surface. This vast man-made lake spans three cities and counties — Jecheon, Chungju, and Danyang — and its name can cause some confusion. Known as Chungju Lake since 1998, that’s the name most outsiders recognize, but locals in Jecheon now call it Cheongpung Lake, while those in Danyang call it Danyang Lake (understandably so, since Jecheon, which accounts for 59 percent of the lake’s total area, might feel a bit shortchanged by the name ‘Chungju Lake’). Since 2019, the city of Jecheon has been actively developing tourist attractions around Cheongpung Lake, resulting in a monorail, cable car, and suspension bridge.
At the entrance to the 222-meter-long suspension bridge sits a canoe and kayak experience center. We hurried over, thinking that paddling our way toward the point where Oksunbong Peak meets Geumsusan Mountain would let us experience Cheongpung Lake in an even more vivid way. Oksunbong, whose name means ‘jade bamboo shoot’ for its rock formations resembling clear, sturdy bamboo shoots as pure as jade, is also well known as the subject of a painting in master artist Kim Hongdo’s ‘Byeongjinnyeon Hwacheop’ album. As we paused mid-paddle to crane our necks up at Oksunbong, Park Jaecheol, who runs the experience center, offered a remark: “Unfortunately, most tourism in Korea involves looking down at things. But travel that lets you look up does less damage to the environment and can give you a richer experience.” Gazing up at the rock’s wrinkled folds — evoking a time none of us have ever known — and the ruins of a temple site that must have once been a desperate refuge for someone, his words ring true. If you go around sunset, allow about an hour and a half and set out with plenty of time and peace of mind (other times of day usually take about 50 minutes). It’s the one tip for experiencing Cheongpung Lake in a way few others do.
Cheongpung Lake Canoe & Kayak Experience Center
342 Oksunbong-ro, Susan-myeon, Jecheon-si, Chungcheongbuk-do
Reservations 010-9144-7060
12:00 A Warm, Homemade Taste at Grandma’s Country House
We arrived at a countryside restaurant set against a panoramic view of countless peaks, including Mt. Worak’s Yeongbong Peak. This is Yetnal Halmeoni Sondubu (Grandma’s Old-Fashioned Handmade Tofu), where you can enjoy tofu hot pot bubbling away under a tent outdoors. A couple who loved to travel fell for the scenery of Cheongpungmyeongwol, settled down, and have been running the restaurant since 1995. Drawing on the memory of tofu their grandmother once made, they’ve kept this place going with a single dish — tofu. They grind soybeans grown on Mt. Worak and use brine from a salt farm to make handmade tofu, adding carrots, minnow greens, bean sprouts, and mushrooms for extra flavor and texture. The couple takes great pride in their five-grain rice, made with glutinous brown rice, mae brown rice, black soybeans, black rice, and white rice. As a bonus, the warm hospitality of the couple, who’ll happily tell you the best way to eat each dish, rounds out the experience. It’s such a delicious and delightful meal that you’ll suddenly wonder who first thought to pair mountains with tofu.
Yetnal Halmeoni Sondubu
17 Woraksan-ro, Deoksan-myeon, Jecheon-si, Chungcheongbuk-do
14:00 A Café Lighting Up a Small Country Village, Run by Its Youth
A cooperative called Village Development Workshop, formed by young people from Hansu-myeon, has opened ‘Café Worak.’ Housed in a cozy space behind a church, it’s a place where local young people with dreams of running a café have come together to make that dream a reality. They’ve furnished the space with secondhand items and equipment purchased through online resale platforms, and they craft their menu using ingredients sourced from the village, realizing their aspirations one step at a time. Their signature items include onion bread made with Hansu-myeon’s specialty onions and a mugwort latte made with organic mugwort. Beyond running the café, these young people are also actively working to develop their village — helping neighbors with chores, offering drone experiences, handling pest control, fixing computers, and taking on whatever tasks call for a helping hand.
16:00 Wine and a Life Shaped by Nature
Driving west along the road that circles Woraksan National Park for about 25 minutes, you’ll arrive at the small village of Suhoe-ri. It’s home to ‘Petite Alsace Lesdom,’ an orchard and winery run by French farmer Lesdom and his wife, novelist Shin Ihyeon. The couple explained that they settled here after falling for the village’s quiet, unassuming charm, and for its slightly hilly, dark soil, ideal for growing fruit. Once living in Paris, the couple began learning to farm after Lesdom decided he wanted to become a farmer, eventually returning to Korea to turn that dream into reality. They practice 3 biodynamic farming, a method that goes beyond organic or pesticide-free standards, embodying the farmer’s fundamental spirit of caring for the land rather than simply growing trees.
That’s why Redom’s wine carries a distinctly natural charm. Since the goal is to express the honest flavor that comes straight from the earth, the first glass isn’t especially intense, but by the second, you can feel your body welcoming it comfortably. A wine whose depth moves you the more you drink it, a wine close to the pure, unadorned taste of the fruit itself — these are the hallmarks of this little Alsace called Redom. Winery tours are held once a month. Visitors explore the various crops grown in the orchard together, take a look at the vineyard’s ecosystem, and share in the story of how the wine comes to be. Before long, there are also plans to host gatherings where a chef is invited to pair food made with local ingredients alongside the wine.
3 A farming method founded by the German anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, involving the production of ten types of biodynamic preparations used to enrich compost.
A Little Alsace Called Redom
14 Junggolan-gil, Suanbo-myeon, Chungju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do