The park calls this the Poamsan course and it does not end on Poamsan. It starts at Haneuljae, crosses the summit about 1.3 kilometres in, and carries on for another five to finish on Mansubong. If you take the 6.4 km headline as the walk up Poamsan you will have planned the wrong day, and it is an easy mistake to make because the name invites it.
Safety
Nothing needs booking here; the park takes reservations on two sections elsewhere. Entry is free. What actually governs a visit is the calendar — most of this course sits inside one of the three lines the park shuts each spring, and the machine-readable record gives no sign of it.
Haneuljae to Poamsan to the Mansubong junction is one of the three sections Woraksan closes in spring, 3 March to 30 April. That covers about 4.1 km of this 6.4 km course, including the climb to Poamsan itself. The three closures total 16.8 km and the park reopens everything on 1 May.
The control marker on this course is empty in the park’s course records, while the closure above is stated plainly in its own course text. Read the notice and the course text; do not rely on the restriction flag.
The course is named for Poamsan but ends on Mansubong, and the summit is a waypoint at about 1.3 km rather than the destination. Plan the day against 6.4 km and a finish at a different trailhead, not against a 962 m peak an hour above the pass.
Timed access in this part of Woraksan runs to 13:00 in winter and 14:00 in summer, with entry from 05:00 and 04:00 respectively. A three-and-a-half-hour crossing fits, but only from an early start.
Haneuljae over Poamsan, then Magolchi and the Mansubong junction to Mansubong: 6.4 km one way in 3 hours 30 minutes. The section figures add to the same total.
★ What that figure is not: it is not the distance to Poamsan. The summit comes at about 1.3 km, roughly an hour in, and the remaining five kilometres take you along the ridge to a different mountain. If you have read 6.4 km as the climb to Poamsan somewhere else, that is the mistake this page exists to prevent.
The park does publish the Haneuljae to Poamsan section on its own, at 1.3 km and about an hour. It publishes no return figure, so allow for the descent yourself.
The park’s course record leaves Haneuljae out of the route description, though the course text names it as the start. That same page also carries a sentence about Chaeunbong, which is on Doraksan rather than here.
Getting there
Poamsan rises above Haneuljae, the old pass on the Chungju side of Woraksan National Park. There is one official course and it starts there. Read the name carefully before you plan: the park calls it the Poamsan course, but it runs on past Poamsan to finish at Mansubong, and the summit you came for is about a quarter of the way along.
Haneuljae Pass
The old pass, and the start of the course. No parking charge is published for it. Bear in mind the route finishes at Mansubong rather than back here.
Course overview · reference only — a schematic of the routes, not an actual navigation route or GPS track.
What the 6.4 km actually covers
Haneuljae to Poamsan to Magolchi to the Mansubong junction to Mansubong: 6.4 km one way, 3 hours 30 minutes. The section breakdown adds to the same figure.
Poamsan, at 962 m, is the first summit on that line. The park publishes the Haneuljae to Poamsan section separately at 1.3 km and about an hour.
That is the whole of the official record for Poamsan on its own. There is no round-trip distance and no round-trip time. Doubling the 1.3 km would not give a published figure — the ground between a pass and a summit rarely behaves symmetrically and the park has chosen not to state it.
So: if you want the summit and back, the outward leg is 1.3 km and about an hour, and the rest is your own judgement. If you want the published route, it is a 6.4 km traverse that finishes at a different trailhead.
Most of it closes every spring
Every spring the park keeps three lines shut between 3 March and 30 April, 16.8 km in total, opening them again on 1 May.
One of the three is Haneuljae to Poamsan to the Mansubong junction. That is about 4.1 km of this 6.4 km course, and it includes the climb to the summit. Another of the three, the Mapaebong junction to Bubong to Haneuljae, meets this route at its start.
For two months of the year, in other words, the mountain is not available. That is a sharper restriction than most of the park carries — several neighbouring peaks inside the same national park are not affected at all.
Sitting above all of it is the fire-risk designation, which ran 20 January through 15 May in 2026 — a wider window, and not a closure in itself. Check the current notice for the season you are travelling in.
The website will tell you it is open
The park’s course records carry a control marker for each course. On this one it is empty — no restriction recorded. Meanwhile the course text on the same page states that the Haneuljae to Mansubong-junction section is closed during the fire season.
Two fields on one page, disagreeing. Anyone building a trip from the machine-readable side alone would drive to Haneuljae in late March and find a sign.
Read the notice. The flag is not the notice.
Two wrinkles in the source
Worth knowing if you go looking at the park pages yourself. The structured route description for this course leaves Haneuljae out altogether, listing the line as beginning at Poamsan, while the course text names Haneuljae as the start. We follow the text.
And the same page carries a sentence about Chaeunbong, which is a peak on Doraksan, elsewhere in this park. It appears to be pasted in error. If you read something on the Poamsan page that does not match the ground, that may be why.
Practicalities
Nothing to book — the park takes reservations on two sections and this is not one of them. No entrance fee either, and nobody publishes a parking rate for Haneuljae.
Timed access in this part of the park closes at 13:00 in winter and 14:00 in summer, with entry from 05:00 and 04:00. A three-and-a-half-hour traverse fits comfortably from an early start and not at all from a late one.
And the traverse ends at Mansubong, not back at the pass. Two cars, or a plan.
How to take it
Between May and the end of February, and not in between. If you want the published route, walk the 6.4 km to Mansubong and arrange the pick-up first.
If you only want Poamsan, it is an hour up from Haneuljae and an hour or so back, and you should treat that as your own plan rather than the park’s, because the park has not published it.
FAQ
How far is it to the summit?
About 1.3 km, roughly an hour from Haneuljae — that is the section figure the park publishes. The 6.4 km you will see attached to the Poamsan course is the whole traverse to Mansubong, a different mountain at the far end of the ridge. No official round-trip figure exists for Poamsan on its own, so we are not giving you one.
Why is it called the Poamsan course if it ends somewhere else?
The park does not explain it. The route is named for the first summit it crosses. Its stated end point is Mansubong, by way of Magolchi and the Mansubong junction, and the park’s course record even leaves Haneuljae out of the description despite the text naming it as the start.
When is it closed?
3 March to 30 April. Haneuljae to Poamsan to the Mansubong junction is one of three sections Woraksan closes each spring, and it covers about 4.1 km of this course including the climb to the summit. Everything reopens on 1 May.
The park website shows no restriction. Is it open?
Not necessarily. The control marker in the park’s course records for this route is empty, while the closure is stated in the course text on the same page. Read the notice and the course text, not the flag.
Can I just go up and come back down?
People do, and the park gives you the outward half at 1.3 km and about an hour. What it does not give is a round-trip distance or time for that, so anything you read as a return figure has been calculated by somebody rather than published.
How high is Poamsan?
962 m, from the park’s own material. It is the first of several tops on this ridge, with Mansubong at the far end of the course.