Get on Subway Line Three heading toward the edge of Seoul on a Saturday morning, and you will hear them before you see them. The unmistakable, rhythmic swoosh swoosh of water resistant ballistic nylon. The clack clack of carbon fiber hiking poles on the floor. The train car is a technicolor avalanche of blinding fuchsia, radioactive green, and electric blue.
These are the middle aged men and women of Korea, dressed like they’re headed for an alpine expedition. Top tier base layers. Boots that look like they could kick through concrete. A tiny Bluetooth speaker dangling from a backpack, playing heavily synthesized, upbeat Korean folk pop.
And the point isn’t the weather. It’s status. It’s belonging. It’s a ghost of corporate Korea, still hanging around on the weekends.
During the 1997–98 IMF crisis, the economy cracked. Huge numbers of white collar men were laid off. In a society where your worth could feel welded to your job title, that kind of loss carried real shame. There are stories from that era—men leaving home in suits at the usual time, not quite able to say out loud what had happened, and spending the day out on the mountain because at least it was somewhere to go that didn’t cost anything.
The economy recovered, but that generation aged into a brutally early retirement. The corporate hierarchy that organized their lives evaporated. So they rebuilt pieces of it on the trail.
These hiking groups aren’t just friends out for a stroll. They’re organized. There’s a captain who dictates the pace. There’s a treasurer who collects dues. Everyone has a role, even if the “office” is a ridge line.
And that ultra expensive neon gear? It’s the new suit. It signals you had a successful career, that you can afford the best. The colors—so loud they almost hurt—feel like a rebellion against decades of identical black and navy.
Then, near the top, the performance softens. Out come the foam sitting pads. Out come the plastic containers. The same summit picnic you see everywhere up here—kimbap, cucumbers, something bright and simple that survives being stuffed in a backpack. The contrast is almost funny: space-age outerwear, and snacks your aunt would pack.
And then someone produces makgeolli. Milky rice wine in a chilled plastic bottle wrapped in a towel, poured into paper cups or dented gold-colored bowls. Officially, drinking on the peaks isn’t allowed. Unofficially, they’ll hand you a cup even if you’re a stranger. They clink. Drink, they tell you.
A lot of people hike to get away from the city. Here, the city comes with you—the chatter, the sharing, the little hierarchies, the easy intimacy with strangers. Sitting on granite with Seoul spread out below, the older hiker gets to be something again. Down there he’s retired, negotiating touch-screen kiosks and a world that moved on without him. Up here, he’s part of a crew. He has a place.
