Ulsanbawi
1 / 10

Ulsanbawi Rock

4.7
ยท1k reviewsยทSokcho-si, South Korea

Iconic granite peaks in Seoraksan National Park, famous for a challenging hike with nearly 900 steep stairs and breathtaking summit views.

Highlights

Highlights

Must-see attractions

Social content

Social

From TikTok & Reddit

Best Time

Autumn mornings

Vibrant foliage, cooler temps

CrowdMedium
Loading map...
Ulsanbawi

Ulsanbawi Rock

Best Time

Autumn mornings

Vibrant foliage, cooler temps

CrowdMedium
Highlights

Highlights

Must-see attractions

Iconic granite peaks in Seoraksan National Park, famous for a challenging hike with nearly 900 steep stairs and breathtaking summit views.

4.7
(1k reviews)

"The view up top was rewarding, especially when you are on the exposed granite top."

Vertical photo
TIP

๐Ÿ‘Ÿ Wear Proper Hiking Shoes

Sturdy footwear is essential for the steep stairs and rocky terrain. Avoid sandals or casual shoes!

๐Ÿ’ง Stay Hydrated

Bring plenty of water, especially during warmer months. The climb can be strenuous.

Third hero image

Quick Facts

Highlights

Discover the most iconic attractions and experiences

Ulsanbawi Rock Summit

Ulsanbawi Rock Summit

Seoraksan National Park

Six granite peaks offering breathtaking panoramic views of Seoraksan Mountain. A truly spectacular reward!

The 'Stair Master' Ascent

The 'Stair Master' Ascent

Ulsanbawi Trail

An exhilarating climb up nearly 900 steep metal stairs clinging to the rock face. A challenging but unforgettable experience.

Seoraksan National Park Scenery

Seoraksan National Park Scenery

Seoraksan National Park

Immerse yourself in the beauty of dense forests and dramatic mountain landscapes on your way to the rock.

Your AI travel agent

Plans like a pro.
Thinks like you

Start Chatting

Planning Your Visit

Conquer the Ulsanbawi Stairs

Prepare for a challenging but rewarding hike! The final ascent to Ulsanbawi Rock involves approximately 888 steep metal stairs, earning it the nickname 'stair master from hell.' While a 4-year-old managed it, a moderate level of fitness is recommended. Wear comfortable shoes and avoid jeans for this invigorating trek.

Best Views & Timing

The panoramic views from Ulsanbawi Rock are spectacular, especially on a clear day. Many visitors recommend visiting in autumn for vibrant foliage. While the hike can be done year-round, be mindful of summer heat and potential winter ice. Early mornings or late afternoons might offer fewer crowds.

Best Times

When
Autumn mornings
Why
Vibrant foliage, cooler temps
Crowd
Medium
When
Late afternoon
Why
Golden hour light, fewer crowds
Crowd
Low
When
Weekdays
Why
Avoid weekend rush
Crowd
Low

Insider Tips

from TikTok, Instagram & Reddit

๐Ÿ“ Ulsanbawi in Seoraksan National Park is an absolute highlight! ๐Ÿ”๏ธ This distinctive rock offers breathtaking views that make the challenging ascent absolutely worthwhile. โœจ Here are some tips for your hike: ๐ŸšŒ Getting there: Itโ€™s best to stay in Sokcho in the northeast. From there, you can take a bus to Seoraksan National Park. โ„น๏ธ Bus schedules are very unreliable, itโ€™s best to arrive several m...
jannaxthomas
213 likes โ€ข 12.8K views

๐Ÿ‘Ÿ Wear Proper Hiking Shoes

Sturdy footwear is essential for the steep stairs and rocky terrain. Avoid sandals or casual shoes! Reddit

๐Ÿ’ง Stay Hydrated

Bring plenty of water, especially during warmer months. The climb can be strenuous. Instagram

โ€ข U L S A N B A W I R O C K โ€ข (English below โคต๏ธ) Der Aufstieg zum Ulsanbawi Rock im Seoraksan National Park war bisher einer meiner spektakulรคrsten Hikes! Einfach nur Wahnsinn! Ingesamt gibt es 16 verschiedenste Trails im Nationalpark: sucht daher nach dem Ulsanbawi Trail! Facts zum Trail: - Schwierigkeitsgrad: anspruchsvoll - Dauer: 3-4h (je nach Kondition) - Distanz: 6,8 km Hin- und Rรผckw...
__viatess
72 likes โ€ข 1.4K views
์„ค๊ฒฝ์„ ๊ฐ์ƒํ•  ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ๋Š” ๊ณ ์„ฑ ๋…ธ์ฒœํƒ• ์ˆ™์†Œ โ € ๊ฐ•์›๋„ ๊ณ ์„ฑ์— ์ž๋ฆฌํ•œ ์†Œ๋…ธํŽ ๋ฆฌ์ฒด ๋ธํ”ผ๋…ธ๋Š” ์„ค์•…์‚ฐ ์šธ์‚ฐ๋ฐ”์œ„์™€ ๋™ํ•ด๋ฅผ ๋™์‹œ์— ๋ฐ”๋ผ๋ณผ ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ๋Š” ์••๋„์ ์ธ ์ „๋ง์œผ๋กœ ์‚ฌ๋ž‘๋ฐ›๋Š” ๋ฆฌ์กฐํŠธ๋‹ค. โ € ์ด์ŠคํŠธํƒ€์›Œ์™€ ์›จ์ŠคํŠธํƒ€์›Œ๋กœ ๊ตฌ์„ฑ๋œ ์ด๊ณณ์€ ์‹ค๋ฒ„๋ถ€ํ„ฐ ํ”„๋ ˆ์ง€๋ด์…œ๊นŒ์ง€ ์ด 4๊ฐ€์ง€ ๊ฐ์‹ค ํƒ€์ž…, 211๊ฐœ ๊ฐ์‹ค์„ ๊ฐ–์ถ”๊ณ  ์žˆ์œผ๋ฉฐ ๊ธฐ์ค€ 6์ธยท์ตœ๋Œ€ 9์ธ๊นŒ์ง€ ์ด์šฉํ•  ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ์–ด ๊ฐ€์กฑยท๋‹จ์ฒด ์—ฌํ–‰์— ํŠนํžˆ ์ ํ•ฉํ•˜๋‹ค. โ € ๋ชจ๋“  ๊ฐ์‹ค์—๋Š” ํ”„๋ผ์ด๋น— ์š•์กฐ์™€ ์˜จ์ฒœ์ˆ˜ ์ŠคํŒŒ๊ฐ€ ๋งˆ๋ จ๋˜์–ด ์žˆ์–ด ๊ฐ์‹ค ์•ˆ์—์„œ๋„ ํŽธ์•ˆํ•œ ํž๋ง์„ ์ฆ๊ธธ ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ๊ณ , ๋‹ค์–‘ํ•œ ๋ถ€๋Œ€์‹œ์„ค๋„ ํ•จ๊ป˜ ๊ฐ–์ถฐ์ ธ ์žˆ๋‹ค. ์šธ์‚ฐ๋ฐ”์œ„ ์ „๋ง ๊ฐ์‹ค์€ ๊ณจ๋“œ ํƒ€์ž… ์ด์ƒ์—์„œ ์„ ํƒ ๊ฐ€๋Šฅํ•˜๋ฉฐ, ์ฒดํฌ์ธ ๋‹น์ผ ๋ฒˆํ˜ธํ‘œ ์ˆœ์œผ๋กœ ์„ ์ฐฉ์ˆœ ๋ฐฐ์ •๋œ๋‹ค. โ € ๋˜ํ•œ ์ธํ”ผ๋‹ˆํ‹ฐํ’€์€ 1์ธ 55,000์›์— ์ด์šฉํ•  ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ์œผ๋ฉฐ, ๋ฆฌ์กฐํŠธ ํˆฌ์ˆ™๊ฐ์ด ์•„๋‹ˆ์–ด๋„ ์ž…์žฅ ๊ฐ€๋Šฅํ•˜๋‹ค....
_yh.yhh
15.2K likes โ€ข 1.7M views

โฌ†๏ธ Pace Yourself on Stairs

The final ascent is demanding. Take breaks as needed and enjoy the journey. Reddit

๐Ÿ“ธ Capture the Views

The summit offers incredible photo opportunities. Don't forget your camera! Instagram

Climb 888 stairs and youโ€™ll find this gorgeous view called Ulsanbawi rock in Seoraksan national park! Comment SLOG for a discount on my LUTs and follow for more adventures! Only two hours from seoul, the view was absolutely gorgeous despite having to climb stairs all the way up! #korea #cinematic #hike #edit
andyescapes
39.3K likes โ€ข 556.8K views

Tips

from all over the internet

๐Ÿ‘Ÿ Wear Proper Hiking Shoes

Sturdy footwear is essential for the steep stairs and rocky terrain. Avoid sandals or casual shoes! Reddit

๐Ÿ’ง Stay Hydrated

Bring plenty of water, especially during warmer months. The climb can be strenuous. Instagram

โฌ†๏ธ Pace Yourself on Stairs

The final ascent is demanding. Take breaks as needed and enjoy the journey. Reddit

๐Ÿ“ธ Capture the Views

The summit offers incredible photo opportunities. Don't forget your camera! Instagram

๐ŸšŒ Bus to the Park

From Sokcho, take a bus to Seoraksan National Park. Check schedules in advance. TikTok

What Travellers Say

4.7
(1k reviews)

Reviews Summary

Ulsanbawi Rock is a must-do hike in Seoraksan National Park, celebrated for its spectacular summit views that make the challenging ascent worthwhile. Visitors praise the invigorating climb, especially the iconic stair section, and the rewarding panoramic vistas. While the hike is demanding, particularly the final stairs, the well-maintained trail and breathtaking scenery are consistently highlighted as major positives.

"Most hikers coming to Seoraksan National Park will want to do this trek. Out and back with a blistering uphill (my 4 yo did it himself so it can be done!) at its last part, it is an invigorating hike, especially when you are on the exposed granite top. The view in good weather will be pretty awesome and the top area actually has a few view points that you can stop at for photos before descending back."

Rtexal Tan

"This hike is definitely not an easy one - itโ€™s around 2000ft gain in 2 miles. The last 1km was brutal with all stairs straight up. It was nice hiking through dense maple and oak forests that turn bright red and gold and the view up top was rewarding"

Minh Phan

"Nice summer hike! The temperature was an issue but the course is well maintained. The last part, the stairs, was challenging. However, you will be rewarded with stunning views."

daniel hailemariam

What People Like

Spectacular summit views
Invigorating stair climb
Beautiful park scenery

What People Dislike

Challenging final stairs
Can be strenuous

Frequently Asked Questions

๐Ÿš‡ ๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ Getting There

The most common way is to take a bus from Seoul to Sokcho (approximately 3 hours). From Sokcho, you can catch another bus directly to Seoraksan National Park, which is the starting point for the Ulsanbawi trail. TikTok

If you're not driving, taking a bus from major cities like Seoul to Sokcho is recommended. From Sokcho, local buses will take you to the park entrance. TikTok

While it's possible to do a day trip, it's a very long day with travel time. Many visitors opt to stay overnight in Sokcho to fully enjoy the park and the Ulsanbawi hike. Reddit

Yes, taxis are available in Sokcho and can take you to the park entrance. However, buses are generally more budget-friendly. TikTok

The driving distance from Seoul to Seoraksan National Park is roughly 245 kilometers (about 152 miles), which translates to about a 3-hour bus ride depending on traffic. Instagram

๐ŸŽซ ๐ŸŽซ Tickets & Entry

Yes, there is a small entrance fee for Seoraksan National Park. It's advisable to check the official park website for the most current pricing. Reddit

Tickets are generally for the park entrance, not specifically for the Ulsanbawi trail. It's recommended to purchase your park entrance ticket upon arrival. Reddit

Seoraksan National Park is generally open year-round, but specific trail access and visitor center hours may vary by season. It's best to check the official park website for current operating hours. Instagram

While not explicitly mentioned for park entry, some creators offer discounts on related products. It's always worth checking for any available promotions or group rates. Instagram

The trails are generally accessible during park hours. However, it's advisable to start your hike with enough daylight to complete it safely, especially considering the challenging ascent. Instagram

๐ŸŽซ ๐Ÿฅพ Onsite Experience

The hike to Ulsanbawi Rock is typically around 3-4 hours round trip, depending on your pace and how much time you spend at the summit. Some estimate 2 hours up and 1.5 hours down if taking your time. InstagramReddit

The hike is considered challenging, particularly the final 1km which consists of steep metal stairs. A moderate level of fitness is recommended. Instagram+1

You'll be rewarded with spectacular panoramic views of Seoraksan National Park's mountains and surrounding landscapes. It's considered one of the best views in Korea. Instagram

Restroom facilities are available at the park entrance and at various points within the park, including near the start of the Ulsanbawi trail. Instagram

While challenging, some younger hikers have successfully completed the trail. However, parents should assess their child's stamina and ability to navigate steep stairs. Reddit

๐Ÿ“ธ ๐Ÿ“ธ Photography

The summit itself offers incredible vantage points. Look for areas with clear views of the surrounding peaks and rock formations. The staircases also provide dramatic photographic opportunities. Instagram

Early morning or late afternoon can provide beautiful golden hour lighting. However, clear weather is the most crucial factor for stunning photos. Instagram

Drone usage is typically restricted in national parks to protect wildlife and ensure visitor safety. It's best to check the official Seoraksan National Park regulations regarding drone photography. Instagram

A wide-angle lens is great for capturing the expansive landscapes. A sturdy tripod can be helpful for low-light conditions or long exposures. Instagram

Yes, there are cafes like Sonofelice Del Pino in Goseong that offer panoramic views of Seoraksan Mountain and Ulsanbawi Rock, providing a different perspective for photography. Instagram

You may also like

Ulsanbawi Rock (2026) โ€“ Best of TikTok, Instagram & Reddit Travel Guide