By the time our full-trail challenge group reached Gamnaetgil Section 6-3, we were past the halfway point of the entire 23-section series — a milestone that came with its own quiet satisfaction, even as the calendar tipped toward Busan’s real summer heat. My friend Hana and I met the group at Gaegeum Station’s meeting plaza, a Monday morning quiet enough that the neighborhood felt almost entirely ours.
The quiet residential street near Gaegeum Station, apartment towers rising behind it, at the start of the walk.
Route waypoints
Through a sleepy neighborhood to Baekyangsan
The route opens with a short walk through Gaegeum’s back streets, past a well-marked school route, small shopfronts, and a couple of oddly named local spots that got a laugh out of the group — a “senior citizens’ rest area” with a slightly awkward English-adjacent name, and a hardware cooperative sign that seemed unusually intense for its actual business. A steady, unglamorous climb up toward Baekyangsan’s entrance followed, the toughest single stretch of the whole day according to more than one veteran of the challenge series.
Juryejeong Pavilion: the official starting line
At Juryejeong Pavilion, the group stamped in and opened the Gamnaetgil app to officially begin Section 6-3 — a formality that, after sixteen sections of walking together, had become a familiar and satisfying little ritual. More uphill followed almost immediately, broken up by rest stops at a series of small pavilions along the ridge, the third one generous enough for the whole group to properly recover before pushing on.
A barefoot forest path and quiet trails
Past a tree nursery and a public restroom, we found a newly built barefoot forest trail across from the bathroom — a nice, if slightly bittersweet, discovery, since it had replaced a quieter, less developed stretch of path some in the group remembered fondly from earlier walks. The climb continued through deepening June greenery until we reached the section’s midpoint marker, one of the more scenic checkpoints on the whole route, for a group photo.
Seonamsa Temple’s quiet grounds
The trail toward Seonamsa Temple felt like it was welcoming us in, trees lining the path in a way that made the approach feel deliberate rather than incidental. Being a quiet Monday, both the forest road and the temple grounds themselves were nearly empty — a rare kind of stillness that let the group actually linger, exploring the temple a little more thoroughly than a typical rest stop usually allows before a group photo at the gate.
The ochre road to Baram-gogae and the final descent
Past Seonamsa, a roughly 1.6 km round-trip stretch of packed ochre-colored earth road leads to Baram-gogae (“Wind Pass”) — a soft, distinctive surface underfoot that made this one of the more physically comfortable stretches of the day. After the tougher sections earlier in the challenge series, this course felt almost gentle by comparison, though the final steep descent still demanded real care, spacing the group out more than usual.
Seongjigok Reservoir to the finish
A last climb through a tall cypress grove gave way to a final rest near Children’s Grand Park’s entrance before the trail dropped onto the walking path around Seongjigok Reservoir. Along the way, we passed a monument to a Joseon-era Buddhist monk-general remembered for rebuilding Busanjin Fortress after the Japanese invasions — a piece of history easy to walk past without noticing if no one points it out. The group’s pace visibly picked up as the finish line neared, ending at the entrance to Choeup Children’s Grand Park with the day’s final stamp and photo.
Trail info at a glance
- Distance: approx. 10 km
- Walking time: about 3 hours 20 minutes, average pace 3.2 km/h
- Difficulty: Moderate — a tough initial climb to Baekyangsan, otherwise steady ridge and forest walking
- Start: Gaegeum Station meeting plaza
- Finish: Choeup Children’s Grand Park entrance
- Highlights: Seonamsa Temple, the ochre road to Baram-gogae, Seongjigok Reservoir
Map of the route
The route at a glance
A few practical notes
The climb from Baekyangsan’s entrance to Juryejeong Pavilion is the hardest part of this section, so pace yourself early rather than at the ridge stretches later. The ochre road near Baram-gogae is soft and comfortable underfoot, a welcome change if your feet are tired from earlier Gamnaetgil sections. Seongjigok Reservoir’s surrounding path makes a pleasant, flat cooldown after the forest climbing.
For getting to Gaegeum Station and Choeup, see our guide to getting around Busan.
Walked on a warm, humid Monday in early June, just before a forecasted rain the following day.
More walks nearby
Other walks in Northern hills: Beombangsan to Hoedong Reservoir on this site: