Maisan Mountain

Maisan is two peaks - Ammaisan at 687 metres and Sutmaisan at 681 - standing close together above the Jinan plateau, and from the right angle they read exactly as a horse's ears, which is where the name comes from. The rock is conglomerate, a mass of pebbles cemented together, pitted with tafoni hollows that make the faces look eaten away. Between the peaks is Tapsa, and it is the reason most people come: from the late nineteenth century a man named Yi Gap-yong spent about thirty years stacking stones into pagodas in the yard, some of them over ten metres tall, built without mortar and still standing - around eighty of them survive, and the local claim that they have never fallen in a storm is repeated constantly and is hard to check. A tunnel of cherry trees lines the approach from the south gate for a week or two in April.

What you actually see

• The two peaks - the horse-ear profile above the plateau.
• The stone pagodas - eighty-odd unmortared stacks at Tapsa.
• The pitted rock - conglomerate faces eaten into hollows.
• The cherry avenue - the April approach from the south gate.

When to go

April for the cherry tunnel, October for colour. The approach from the south gate is the scenic one; the north gate is shorter but plainer.

Honest expectations

Reaching Tapsa from the south gate is a walk of a couple of kilometres with a climb. The pagodas are roped off. Climbing Ammaisan is restricted to protect the rock. Park fee applies.

Nearby

Jinan town is below; Jeonju and its hanok village are an hour west.