Jeju: Hallasan

Hallasan is the center of Jeju Island and, properly speaking, it is Jeju Island, being the highest bits of the volcano.  It's the tallest mountain in Korea and I wasn't going to leave without climbing it.

I rose early and boarded a bus to the park surrounding the mountain.  On board I met a Dutch tourist who was also planning an ascent, so we went together.  We climbed up the Gwaneumsa trail (8.7 km, mostly stairs) and down the Seongpanak trail (9.6 km, mostly uneven chunks of basalt).

The Gwaneumsa trail begins in a forest that looks like this.

About 2/3 of the way through you exit the forest and can see mist-shrouded peaks like this.

Here I've Photoshopped out the clouds.  (I have not Photoshopped out the clouds.)

You have to climb a lot of stairs to get here.

Here's the Dutch guy clearly on the wrong side of the fence.

Here he considers scrambling down the slope to take a dip in the lake.

There's a camera trained on the lake to discourage (and facilitate the punishment of) that sort of thing.

Korean hiker is on top of world!

Sadly, this is the least stupid-looking picture of me at the summit. 

Watching clouds roll over the crater was neat.

Meadows are nice.