Woraksan National Park

Character

A male goral known as WM-14 left Woraksan and was later confirmed about 40 kilometres away toward Songnisan after moving through the central mountains. Another animal reached terrain 20 kilometres toward Sobaeksan. For a population that had left no local trace after 1982, movement out of the park is the most striking change

The terrain helps explain why the recovery took hold here. Long-tailed gorals use steep, rocky mountain ground, commonly around 600–700 metres and on slopes of roughly 30–35 degrees. Woraksan supplies that habitat on a large scale; the same rock that makes the upper approaches to Yeongbong demanding gives the animals cliffs and broken ground that other large mammals use less easily

The latest count was made one photograph at a time. From April to November 2024, 106 sensor cameras produced more than 4,700 goral images. After duplicates were removed, analysts compared horn shape, facial color and markings and identified at least 183 animals. The survey used denser camera coverage than earlier counts, so part of the higher total reflects improved detection as well as continued reproduction

The experience

At Yeongbong, the park becomes abruptly vertical. The summit reaches 1,097 metres, and Korea Tourism Organization describes rock sections rising about 150 metres on the approach. Korea National Park Service lists four separate summit routes — from Deokjusa, Dongchanggyo, Silleuksa and Bodeokam — rather than one default ascent

Mansu Valley stays lower, while the northern ridges around Oksunbong, Gudambong and Jebibong look across Chungjuho instead of concentrating on Yeongbong. These sections produce different mountain days: valley walking and reservoir-facing ridges occupy the same park as the steep summit approaches

Haneuljae is different again. The pass runs from the Mireuk-ri temple-site area toward Mungyeong on a road that Samguk sagi records as opened in 156, two years before Jukryeong. Here the mountain is encountered as an old crossing rather than a summit objective: a corridor used for movement between regions long before the surrounding terrain became a national park

History

The oldest dated route through Woraksan is Haneuljae. Korea Heritage Service records the Gyerimnyeong road as opened in 156 during Silla and describes the pass as a strategic route through the central mountains. The Chungju section became a national Scenic Site in 2008

When Woraksan became Korea’s 17th national park in 1984, surveys had already stopped finding local goral traces after 1982. Six captive-bred animals were released in three attempts in 1994, 1997 and 1998. By 2005 the population had grown to around 15, but genetic work showed that the small group was too closely related for a secure recovery

The next phase brought animals in from elsewhere to widen that genetic base. From 2007 through 2014, 22 gorals were released at Woraksan. Some arrived through rescue rather than breeding alone: in May 2014, park staff released two males rescued after heavy snow in Seoraksan together with a female rescued the previous winter and the daughter she had given birth to during rehabilitation at Woraksan

Monitoring then began to show a population reproducing on its own. Sensor cameras identified 89 animals in 2017, 98 in 2018 and at least 100 in 2019. Reaching 100 changed the job for managers: the stated emphasis shifted from adding animals toward protecting habitat and the connections through which they could disperse

WM-14 had already demonstrated what that could mean. After being fitted with a transmitter at Woraksan, the male was recorded moving through Joryeongsan and onward along the mountain chain before being confirmed about 40 kilometres away toward Songnisan. Another goral was later found roughly 20 kilometres in the Sobaeksan direction

The 2024 survey identified at least 183 animals, but the figure comes with an important methodological detail: 106 cameras covered the park more densely than the 80-camera surveys used around 2019. Researchers attributed the larger detected total partly to that denser coverage and partly to continued breeding. The recovery is therefore strongest not as a smooth numerical curve, but in the combination of reproduction inside Woraksan and animals physically leaving it

Before you go

Yeongbong and Haneuljae function as separate outings. The four Yeongbong approaches enter steep summit terrain, while Haneuljae begins around Mireuk-ri as a lower historic crossing; the choice changes both the physical day and the arrival corridor