Places In Korea: Northern Gangwon-do's Punchbowl

This weekend I took a trip to the remote Northern Gangwon-do area to see the infamous Korean War battle site, the Punchbowl. I reached the Punchbowl by traveling North from Chuncheon on Highway 46. The highway travels up and twists around the side of some high mountains before traveling adjacent to the Soyangho Lake.

The mountains here are round, steep, and high; many reaching over 1,000 meters. They are not stunning rock monoliths like Bukhansan or Soraksan but more like mountains you would see in West Virgina. Never the less it is extremely beautiful up there especially along the lake. The best part about exploring this area is the fact very few people venture up there. No traffic jams, no cars parked all over the side of the roads, and no trails jam packed with hikers like a city side walk. You can pretty much pick a spot and enjoy it for yourself the whole day.

The lake itself was just beautiful. I just wish I had time and access to a boat. This would be a great place to water ski. The water was so calm and there was only one boater on the lake the whole day. I didn’t see any boat or water ski rental businesses or anybody water skiing the whole day; so I wonder if you can do water sports on the lake? Probably I don’t see why not.

The city of Yanggu just North of Soyangho Lake is located adjacent to another lake Paroho Lake. Supposedly this lake is famous for great fishing. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to find out but I am actually thinking of planning a fishing trip there in the future. The Marmot had sent me a message saying the city was a really nice place and he was right. The city has lots of flowers planted everywhere and was really clean and orderly. The school there was brand new with a huge gym and also a new soccer stadium with two practice fields. This city was impressive for being located so close to the DMZ. Border cities are usually run down and shabby, not this one. This picture is from a ridge on the Punchbowl looking South towards Yanggu.

Looking around this area I can’t help but think this would be a great place to turn into an adventure sports city. There are plenty of remote and steep mountains for climbing, hiking, and mountain biking, access to the lake for water sports, and down the road in Inje there is white water rafting and kayaking. It just needs to be developed to conduct these activities. Personally I would love to go mountain biking up there sometime.

The next stop was the Punchbowl to the north. Highway 31 travels north of Yanggu along a pretty valley filled with sporadic farms and military bases. Eventually you will reach an exit to the Punchbowl. The road to the Punchbowl travels up an extremely steep road that reaches over 1000 meters in elevation. From the top of the road you get a great view of the area and something that really sticks out is the deforestation that occurred here in the past due to the war. Many small trees have been planted to heal the scars here just like in other areas in Korea.

Once inside the Punchbowl you can really understand why they called it such. The valley is exactly the shape of a round bowl. This shape is due to the valley actually being the caldera of a long extinct and badly eroded volcano. Kind of like a really, really, old Paekdusan, the famous North Korean volcano.

In this picture you can see that the Punchbowl is actually visible from outer space.

Inside of the valley there are many farms and located in the middle of the valley is the village of Haean. Haean is a very small village with few accomodations and a heavy military presence. The village does have a small museum and you can book a tour to see the 4th Infiltration Tunnel and the Ulji Observation Post.

The Punchbowl is the site of the infamous Bloody Ridge and Heartbreak Ridge battles. On these slopes during the Korean War 183 ROK Marines and 245 American Marines lost their lives to take these mountains from the defending North Korean soldiers. The combined ROK and American Marines inflicted 2,799 KIAs on the enemy and captured 557 POWs during the fighting.  The memories of these casualties are enshrined at a memorial in the middle of Haean:

Securing these two mountains allowed the coalition forces to consolidate their hold on the Haean basin and to gain strategic ground over looking the North Korean territory to defend against any future North Korean offensives. This strategic ground remains valuable today in protecting the nation from future North Korean aggression.

The below pictures show the Heartbreak and Bloody Ridge battle sites.

Today the battle sites make up part of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and is defended by the ROK Army. Looking at the Punchbowl today it is hard to imagine that such a tranquil valley as this was once the scene of the most ferocious fighting of the Korean War. Besides the DMZ the only reminder that this battle occured here, is the billboard in the city proclaiming this basin as the site of the final battle featured in the hit Korean movie, Taeguki.