Discovering the Untouched Beauty of the DMZ Ecological Peace Park in Cheorwon
I highly recommend the DMZ Ecological Peace Park in Cheorwon, Gangwon-do, as a must-visit autumn destination. I visited it in September three years ago. Cheorwon experiences autumn earlier than other regions, so the rice paddies were already turning golden, allowing me to feel the early arrival of autumn even in September.
Recalling the landscapes I saw while walking for two hours under the clear and bright sunlight of Cheorwon, I'd like to introduce the DMZ Ecological Peace Park and its Visitor Center.
Ecological Peace Park Visitor Center:
481-1 Saengchang-gil, Gimhwa-eup, Cheorwon-gun, Gangwon-do
Parking: Free
Ecological Peace Park Admission: Fee required
Tour Departure Times: 10:00 AM / 2:00 PM
(Registration closes 30 minutes prior)
Closed: Every Tuesday
(Based on 2022 information)
You can book your tour through the website by searching for 'DMZ Ecological Peace Park' on Naver. Reservations can be made online or by phone up to 30 minutes before the tour.
The building below is the Ecological Peace Park Visitor Center, where you need to complete the registration process before the tour.
Please note that you must arrive at the Visitor Center 30 minutes before the tour to fill out a pledge and receive pre-tour information and instructions. Only then you are allowed to participate.
The Peace Park Visitor Center also offers relatively inexpensive accommodations for visitors, making it convenient to use before or after the tour (70,000 KRW for a room for four, with a 20,000 KRW refund in Cheorwon gift certificates, effectively costing 50,000 KRW). We stayed there overnight after the tour and enjoyed more of Cheorwon.
Inside the Room:
The DMZ Ecological Peace Park has been completely closed to civilians for 60 years after the armistice, so it is a place where the primitive ecosystem has been preserved intact, inaccessible to the general public.
The DMZ Ecological Peace Park plays a role in promoting the value of the DMZ worldwide as a symbol of peace, as well as ecological preservation. The DMZ Ecological Peace Park is an ecological treasure that shows the process of restoration from the ruins of national division and is one of the key ecological axes of the Korean Peninsula.
The DMZ can be said to be a treasure trove of ecology where the natural ecosystem destroyed by the war is being restored. It is a globally unique example that shows the dynamic recovery process after the natural ecosystem was destroyed by war and periodic military activities.
Saengchang-ri, Gimhwa-eup, Cheorwon-gun, Gangwon-do, where the DMZ Ecological Peace Park is located, boasts a long history and was once the most prosperous area in Gangwon-do. However, it is also the site of a tragic history that was devastated by division and war before being rebuilt with difficulty.
If you want to see the old appearance of Gimhwa, be sure to visit the Gimhwa Story Museum, which is located to the right and behind the Ecological Peace Park Support Center.
The DMZ Ecological Peace Park is laid out along two hiking trails. There is Course 1, the Cross Pagoda Trail, which requires hiking and takes about 3 hours, and Course 2, the Yongyangbo Course, which involves walking on flat ground and takes about 2 hours.
Course 1, the Cross Pagoda Trail, uses the Cross Pagoda installed on Seongjae Mountain by the 3rd Infantry Division of the Army as an observatory facility where you can directly see the barbed wire fences and fortifications of North and South Korea, and you can overlook the natural environment inside the DMZ and the North Korean guard posts. So, it is said to be a place where you can feel the reality of the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula.
We went on Course 2, the Yongyangbo Course, where you can observe the fierce battlefields such as the Battle of Bloody Ridge during the Korean War, the 105-year-old Amjeong Bridge, and the road origin point of the Geumgangsan Railway.
Cheorwon is located in the very center of the Korean Peninsula, so it is a transportation hub, and there are said to be as many as three of these road origin points.
On Course 2, it was nice to be able to observe the natural environment of Yongyangbo, a beautiful lake-shaped wetland located within the DMZ controlled area, which is hard to find elsewhere in Korea.
Photography was not allowed in areas with more spectacular scenery, so I was only able to capture the lake view from the Yongyangbo Observatory on camera.
The structure in the middle of the lake in Yongyangbo where cormorants are sitting is said to be a suspension bridge that soldiers used to cross while guarding the DMZ after the war. Worn out and falling apart due to the winds and frost of time, only the iron wires that serve as supports remain, but the scenery is so beautiful that many people come to take artistic photos.
Yongyangbo was constructed using the bridge piers of the Geumgangsan Electric Railway, which was built during the Japanese colonial period, so the reservoir itself is valuable as a modern cultural heritage where you can feel the traces of the old railway bridge.
In Yongyangbo, where people have not set foot for the past 70 years, you can see beautiful wetlands where colonies of Chosen Willow trees are distributed. Migratory birds such as cormorants, cranes, and swans visit Yongyangbo in each season.
Below Yongyangbo, you can also see a sign that says 'Southern Limit Line'. Unauthorized persons are strictly prohibited from entering, so be careful not to enter this area without permission~
While walking as guided by the guide, I saw a sign like this next to the road.
On the way, I saw rice ripening in the rice paddies within the DMZ Ecological Peace Park, perhaps because Cheorwon is famous for Odae rice.
I walked for about an hour along the ecological trail that stretches from Hwagang on the left to Saengchang Village, flanked by fields of rice, beans, sesame, and sweet potatoes on the right.
Nature unfolded under the blue sky, dazzling sun, and white clouds, and fields turning golden.
As I walked along, watching the water of Hwagang flowing gracefully, passing the 105-year-old Amjeong Bridge, I saw the forest that marked the boundary between the village and the fields.
This area, the Landmine Forest Trail, is a forest where landmines are buried, so warning signs of landmine danger were lined up to prevent people from entering without permission. You can only prevent the risk of landmine explosions by going this way.
Next to the road, there are explanatory panels about anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, and wooden box mines.
At the end of the Landmine Forest Trail, there is also a small tank model.
Surprisingly, animals living here, such as roe deer, deer, and squirrels, avoid the landmines very well. The guide told me that they seem to avoid them by smelling the landmines with their developed sense of smell. When you leave this Landmine Forest, you can see Saengchang Village.
Saengchang Village, which was created in 1970 by the government recruiting veterans to rebuild Gimhwa, had houses built in a 2-household-per-house format to monitor and appear larger to North Korea at the time of reconstruction. Some of the houses from that time still remain, and others have been built larger and painted in colorful colors in the late 1970s, allowing you to observe the flow of change.
We toured Saengchang Village and returned to the Visitor Center. I was grateful to the DMZ Ecological Peace Park staff who diligently explained everything for a total of two hours.
I couldn't include all the amazing stories in my travelogue. I can't post them because I don't think they should be posted online without permission, so if you're curious, I hope you'll go to the DMZ Ecological Peace Park in Cheorwon and hear them for yourself^^
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