Gosu Cave

Gosu Donggul is the best known of the caves around Danyang and one of the more heavily decorated in the country - the visitor route covers up to 1.7 kilometres of a cave 5.4 kilometres long, through chambers packed with stalactites, stalagmites, columns, curtains and rimstone pools, many of them named after the shapes people see in them, and there are pools and a small stream. It is Natural Monument No. 256; the name means a field of tall reeds, and when the cave was found in the early 1970s rough stone tools turned up at the entrance. What visitors remember besides the formations is the route itself: the cave rises and falls steeply and the walkway is a sequence of narrow steel stairs, ladders and bridges, some of them near-vertical, in passages tight enough that people go single file and coming back past someone is awkward. It is cool and wet throughout. The advantage over the bigger caves in Gangwon is location - it sits in Danyang town, a few minutes' walk from the terminal, so it needs no car and combines easily with the riverside and the Danyang Palgyeong sights.

The landscape

• The dense formations - columns, curtains and rimstone pools.
• The steel stairways - steep ladders through the chambers.
• The cave stream - water running through the lower level.
• The town location - walkable from Danyang centre.

When to go

Year-round; the cave holds a constant cool temperature and works in any weather. Weekday mornings are quietest.

What to expect

The route involves many steep, narrow steel stairs and low passages - not suitable for anyone claustrophobic, unsteady or with knee problems. It is wet and slippery. Busy in holiday season.

Nearby

Danyang's riverside and Mancheonha skywalk are in town; Chungju Lake ferries leave from the pier.

Key facts