Two courses, and they are not alike
The park publishes two courses here. The Bulguksa course runs 10.5 km one way from the temple, past the Churyeong junction to the summit, then down by Tapgol and Sibugeori to Bobul-ro, in four hours. The Amgok course is a separate 8.5 km loop on the northern side, climbing Mujangbong and returning to where it started in 3 hours 30 minutes.
The Bulguksa figures are unusually well behaved for Korean trail data. The four published segments — 2.2 km, 1.4 km, 2.4 km and 4.5 km — sum to exactly 10.5 km, and the times, 50 plus 35 plus 35 plus 120 minutes, come to exactly four hours. Gyeongju city separately gives the Bulguksa to Seokguram to summit line as 3.6 km and about an hour and a half, which matches the park to the decimal.
Easy is about the ground, not the day
The park puts the Bulguksa course in its easiest grade, and describes gentle slopes and stepped sections that take no great effort. We have kept that rating. But the same page is blunt about what it does not cover: the length makes it hard for children and older walkers, and it warns that you can become exhausted, so bring water and something sweet.
So the grade is a statement about the surface, not about the outing. Ten and a half kilometres is the longest single course in Gyeongju National Park, and the last stretch, 4.5 km out to Bobul-ro, takes two hours by itself.
The park offers a shorter version of the same walk and we would point most visitors at it. From Bulguksa the round trip to the Seokguram car park is 4.4 km and 1 hour 40 minutes. Seokguram adds 1.2 km on top of that; the summit adds 2.8 km from the car park. The park describes that much as suitable for children. You can also drive to the Seokguram car park and start from there, which puts the summit about 1.4 km away.
The summit is closed more often than you would guess
This is the fact to check before anything else. The park closes five sections in the Tohamsan district during the fire-risk seasons, and four of them are the ways to the top: from Bobul-ro, from Churyeong, from Sibugeori and from Tapgol. The fifth is Chuwonsa to Suraetjae to Yongyeon Falls.
What stays open is Bulguksa to Seokguram, and the Amgok loop. Everything above Seokguram is shut.
In 2026 the spring closure ran 15 February to 30 April, seventy-five days. In autumn 2025 it ran 15 November to 15 December, thirty-one more. The park office confirmed in writing that Tohamsan was left out of its own peak-bagging scheme during the autumn period, which tells you how complete the closure is.
One distinction that trips people up: the fire-risk season and the trail closure are not the same dates. In autumn 2025 the fire season opened on 20 October but the trails did not shut until 15 November. The section counts and the dates both move year to year, so read the current notice rather than working from ours.
There may be no sign at the junction
In August 2024 a walker heading for the summit reported reaching the ridge, finding no marker for which branch went to Tohamsan and which to Sibugeori, descending the wrong way, and having to climb back up. The park office replied that it would check on site and look at installing one. Whether it has been installed is not published.
The office also explained why one section cannot be signed at all: the Manhobong area, on this course, is closed to entry under Article 28 of the Natural Parks Act, so no marker may be placed there.
Carry a map, and at the ridge take the branch you can see leads up.
Both monuments are now free
This is worth stating clearly because older guides still quote a ticket price. Bulguksa says on its own site that admission has been free since 4 May 2023, under the revised cultural heritage protection law. Gyeongju city lists Seokguram as free as well. Nor is there a national park entrance fee. Every car park on this mountain belongs to someone other than the park service, which runs no parking, camping or shelter facilities in Gyeongju at all.
Parking is a different matter and it is charged. The Seokguram car park, 232 spaces, is 2,000 won for a small vehicle and 4,000 for a large one, charged from 07:00 to 22:00 every day of the year. The Bulguksa car park is bigger at 327 spaces with the same charging hours, but two official pages give different rates for it, so we are not printing a figure for that one.
Seokguram itself keeps museum hours rather than mountain hours: 09:00 to 18:00 in summer, 09:00 to 17:30 in October, 09:00 to 17:00 in winter, open daily.
The Amgok loop is the summer option
Amgok sits on the other side of the mountain and behaves differently in every respect. It is a loop rather than a traverse, it goes to Mujangbong rather than the Tohamsan summit, and it is the only reserved walk in the whole park: 390 people a day between 16 May and 31 July, booked online or registered on arrival. Outside that window you simply turn up.
The park says the path follows the stream closely enough that it does not get hot even at the height of summer.
Two warnings come with that. Heavy summer rain raises the water suddenly, and the park advises against walking it during the monsoon. And it states that venomous snakes are common around the Mujangsa temple site from late summer into early autumn — the exact months the valley is at its most pleasant.
Sunrise, and a rule we cannot fully explain
Tohamsan has a reputation as a sunrise mountain, and the gate rules seem to allow for it. Most control points in Gyeongju National Park run on fixed clock times: 04:00 to 16:00 in summer, 05:00 to 15:00 in winter. The Tohamsan visitor support centre is listed differently, as restricted from sunset until two hours before the following sunrise.
Read literally, that permits an entry two hours before dawn. But the Seokguram gatehouse on the same course is listed at 04:00 to 16:00 in summer and 05:00 to 15:00 in winter like everywhere else, and no official text explains how the two rules interact. Ask the park office before planning a night start.
What you are walking through
Seokguram and Bulguksa were inscribed by UNESCO together in 1995, under criteria (i) and (iv), and both are credited to Kim Dae-seong, with Bulguksa dated to 774. The park counts eight National Treasures and fifteen Treasures on Tohamsan as a whole.
The name is the other thing worth knowing. Toham is written with the characters for spitting out and holding in: the mountain that swallows mist and breathes it back. It is the second highest in Gyeongju after Danseoksan at 827 m, and one of the five peaks Silla treated as sacred.
How to take it
If you have a morning and you want the monuments, walk up from Bulguksa to Seokguram and back: 4.4 km and 1 hour 40 minutes to the Seokguram car park and back, plus 1.2 km and 30 minutes for the grotto itself, no booking, nothing to pay but parking, and open even in the closed season. It is the walk almost every visitor drives instead.
If you want the summit, check the closure dates first, then add the 2.8 km round trip from the Seokguram car park. Doing the full 10.5 km to Bobul-ro is a different proposition — four hours, a one-way finish, and a junction that may not be signed.
And if it is July and you want shade rather than stone, take the Amgok loop instead, book it, and watch where you put your feet near the temple site.