There is no water on the ridge. The park states that there are no large trees and nothing to drink until the spring below Baraebong, and tells walkers to carry enough before starting. The spring is 300 m below the summit - roughly ten kilometres into a 12.8 km traverse.
The park’s own summary warning for this course is to plan around fitness and the hour of sunset: 12.8 km at 6 hours 10 minutes, with a gate at Yongsan that closes at 13:00 in winter. It also asks for spare clothing and food against sudden rain or a drop in temperature on the ridge.
The published route stops at the Baraebong junction, short of the summit. Anyone planning to reach the top should allow for the detour in both directions, as the park publishes no figure for it.
Three ways off the ridge exist - Buun village, the Sandeok forest road and Pallang village - and the park presents them as a deliberate option for anyone whose fitness or condition changes mid-walk.
Jeongnyeongchi Pass to Yongsan-ri along the Northwest RidgePrimary
Moderate
One way
12.8 km
Time
6 h 10 m
Jeongnyeongchi, Goribong, Segyeolsan, Sedongchi, Buunchi, Pallangchi, the Baraebong junction and down to Yongsan-ri below Unbong: 12.8 km in 6 hours 10 minutes. The two sections are 6.4 km each, at 3 hours 10 and 3 hours, and they add to those totals exactly.
★ The course does not go to the summit. Its own route description ends at the Baraebong junction and drops to Yongsan-ri; the peak lies beyond that junction. If you want to stand on Baraebong you add that out and back yourself, and the park does not publish a figure for it.
Note the direction. Jeongnyeongchi is a road pass at 1,172 m and the summit is 1,165 m - the start is seven metres higher than the top. This is a ridge walk that loses height overall, which is why six hours covers nearly thirteen kilometres.
The park describes both halves as gently graded earth path, with some engineered block sections on the second. The course text contains none of the words you would expect on a hard Korean ridge - rock ridge, chain, ladder, rope, rockfall, steep, dangerous. The risk here is distance, water and daylight, not terrain.
Three escape routes come off the ridge, at Buun village, the Sandeok forest road and Pallang village, so you can shorten the day if you need to. Water is the real constraint: the park says there is nothing to drink until the spring 300 m below Baraebong, and to carry enough from the start.
Yongsan-ri to Pallangchi by the Baraebong Junction
Turns around at Pallangchi
Easy
One way
5.1 km
Time
2 h
Yongsan-ri car park, the Baraebong junction, and on to Pallangchi: 5.1 km, two hours one way. This is not in the park’s course database - it comes from a bulletin the Jirisan north office published for azalea season, which calls it the representative route for seeing the flowers.
Take the recommendation seriously, because it points somewhere counter-intuitive. In the park’s own words the azaleas are more famous at Pallangchi than at Baraebong itself, even though everyone calls them the Baraebong azaleas. The junction is on the way; the flowers are past it.
The park allows two hours for 5.1 km of graded track, which is a brisk pace for a climb onto a ridge at over a thousand metres. Going and coming back is four hours on the same figures, so plan it as a half day rather than a stroll.
The gate here closes at 13:00 from November to March and 14:00 from April to October, opening at 04:00 and 03:00. Those are among the earliest entry hours in the park system, and in azalea season this car park fills.
Getting there
Jeongnyeongchi Pass
A road pass at 1,172 m, and the highest driveable point on this side of Jirisan. It is the start of a one-way traverse, so a car parked here cannot be picked up at the Yongsan-ri finish - the park’s own enquiry log contains that exact question from a visitor. Settle the return before you set off. The road over the pass is closed to vehicles in winter - from 27 November 2025 to 31 March 2026 in the latest notice - so check the current notice before planning a winter start here.
Yongsan-ri Car Park, Unbong
The finish of the traverse and the start of the shorter azalea walk. Note a gap in the records: this car park appears in the park’s timed-entry table as a control point but is absent from its car park register, so no capacity or charge is published for it - check on arrival.
Course overview
Route overview · reference only
Primary route
Jeongnyeongchi Pass to Yongsan-ri along the Northwest Ridge
12.8 km6 h 10 m
Routes on this mountain
Jeongnyeongchi Pass to Yongsan-ri along the Northwest RidgePrimary
Yongsan-ri to Pallangchi by the Baraebong Junction
Course overview · reference only — a schematic of the routes, not an actual navigation route or GPS track.
In mid-May a ridge in the northwest corner of Jirisan National Park turns pink. The flowers are there because of sheep.
A Korea-Australia sheep farm, 1971
It is an unusual origin story for a landscape feature, and it explains the shape of the place: open grassy ridge with azalea in it, rather than forest. The park adds one correction worth having before you plan. In its own words the azaleas are more famous at Pallangchi than at Baraebong itself, even though the whole display is known as the Baraebong azaleas. Pallangchi is a couple of kilometres further along the ridge.
The bloom climbs the hill. It starts in late April at around 500 m and reaches the ridge in mid-May, so there is roughly a month in which something is flowering somewhere on the mountain. The name, incidentally, is said to come from bari, the alms bowl a monk eats from, for the shape of the top.
It is not the main Jirisan ridge
This matters more than it sounds, because Jirisan is Korea’s first national park and its main ridge is a serious multi-day proposition.
What you do get is the view back. Three of the photograph captions on the official course page are versions of the same thing: the main Jirisan ridge, seen from here. That is the geography of the day - you are on the outside looking in.
The course does not go to the summit
The one official course here is called the Jeongnyeongchi to Baraebong course. Read its route description and it ends at the Baraebong junction, then drops to Yongsan-ri. The summit lies beyond that junction.
So the 12.8 km and 6 hours 10 minutes on this page cover a ridge traverse that passes below the peak the course is named for. Add the summit yourself and the numbers change; the park publishes no figure for that detour. This is the second mountain on this site where the official course stops short of its own namesake, and both times the give-away is the same - the structured route description and the prose disagree about where the walk ends.
The height is published, but not by the park
The park service gives no exact elevation for Baraebong anywhere in its material. The figure on this page, 1,165 m, comes from the Korea Tourism Organization’s own destination listing for the mountain.
What the park does confirm, in three separate places, is that Jeongnyeongchi - the road pass where the main course starts - is 1,172 m. So the walk begins seven metres above the summit and loses height overall. That is why six hours covers nearly thirteen kilometres.
A long walk, not a hard one
The course text carries none of the vocabulary that marks a difficult Korean ridge - rock ridge, chain, ladder, rope, rockfall, steep, dangerous. Not one of those words appears. Both halves are described as gently graded earth path, with some engineered block sections on the descent, and the park rates both at the middle of its three-step scale.
The things that will actually catch you out are elsewhere. There is no water on the ridge at all until a spring 300 m below the summit, and the park says so twice. The gate at Yongsan closes at 13:00 in winter. And the course itself warns you to plan against your fitness and the hour of sunset, which is the right warning for a six-hour day with an early cut-off at the far end.
If it goes wrong, three marked ways come off the ridge - Buun village, the Sandeok forest road and Pallang village - and the park presents them as a deliberate option rather than an emergency measure.
Getting back to your car
The main course is one way, from a high pass down to a village 25 to 30 minutes away by car. The park’s public enquiry log contains a visitor asking whether they can leave a car at Jeongnyeongchi and get back to it by bus or taxi; in its 2013 answer the park said there was no bus to the pass and suggested a call taxi from Unbong. Treat the logistics as part of the plan, or take the Yongsan-ri route, which returns the way it came.
The park’s course page lists no public transport for this route. Nor is the Yongsan car park listed in the park’s car park register, though it appears in the timed-entry table as a control point, so there is no published capacity or charge for it - check on arrival.
Two corrections to things you may read elsewhere
The rock carvings at the Gaeryeongam temple site, which the course passes near Jeongnyeongchi, are described on the park site with a heritage number and a height of 4.2 m. The current national heritage listing carries no number at all - Korea stopped using designation numbers in 2021 - and gives the tallest of the twelve figures as 4 m. The designation date is 15 January 1992. The heritage listing is the current record.
And on closures: fire-season restrictions inside a national park run under Article 28 of the Natural Parks Act, with a penalty of up to 500,000 won under Article 86. They do not run under the forest protection law, which excludes national park areas by its own wording. Sources that cite the forest law for a national park trail are citing the wrong instrument. The park publishes fire-season trail notices for Jirisan - the autumn 2025 one, for 15 November to 15 December, kept the Jeongnyeongchi to Baraebong ridge open - so check the current notice before a spring or autumn visit.
FAQ
Is this a way up Jirisan?
Not in the sense most people mean. The park states that Baraebong lies off the main Jirisan ridge, on the northwestern edge of the park. Cheonwangbong, the 1,915 m summit of Jirisan, is a separate and much bigger undertaking from a different trailhead. Come here for the azalea ridge and the view across at the main range.
Which route should I take for the azaleas?
The park recommends Yongsan-ri car park to the Baraebong junction and on to Pallangchi, 5.1 km and two hours one way. That is its own recommendation for the season, and it makes a point worth repeating - the azaleas are actually better known at Pallangchi than at Baraebong, though everyone calls them Baraebong azaleas. Mid-May is the peak.
Does the main course reach the summit?
No. Its published description runs to the Baraebong junction and then down to Yongsan-ri. The summit lies beyond that junction and the park gives no figure for the detour. If the top matters to you, add it in both directions on top of the 12.8 km.
How high is Baraebong?
1,165 m, on the Korea Tourism Organization’s figure. The park service does not publish an exact elevation for it - the only height in its own material is an approximate 1,100 m, in a bulletin about azaleas opening up the hillside. What the park does confirm is that the Jeongnyeongchi pass at the start of the main course is 1,172 m, which means the walk begins above the summit.
Can I park at the start and walk back to the car?
Not on the main course. It runs one way from the Jeongnyeongchi pass to Yongsan-ri, 25 to 30 minutes apart by car, and the park’s public enquiry log has a visitor asking exactly this. In its 2013 answer the park said there was no bus to the pass and suggested a call taxi from Unbong. Either arrange a pick-up, or use the Yongsan-ri route, which returns the way it came.
Is there water on the route?
None until very late. The park says there are no large trees and no water to be had until the spring below Baraebong, which is 300 m under the summit and about ten kilometres into the traverse. Carry what you need from the start.