Maisan

Interesting facts

Before it was named for horse ears, the mountain was called Seodasan under Silla, Yongchulsan under Goryeo and Sokgeumsan in early Joseon; the new name stuck under King Taejong.

Yi Gap-yong, credited with the stone towers of Tapsa, lived from 1860 to 1957 and descended in the 16th generation from Grand Prince Hyoryeong, a son of King Taejong.

According to tradition, Yi began stacking the towers at the age of 25 as a prayer for the nation during the turmoil of the late 19th century.

Local tradition also holds that oxen were later sent from the stone-tower hermitage to support activists of the Korean independence movement.

The roughly 80 stone towers were designated a provincial monument of North Jeolla in 1976, and CNN once listed Tapsa among Korea's 33 most beautiful temples.

The Cheongsilbae pear tree at Eunsusa stands about 18 metres tall, is estimated at some 640 years old and is Natural Monument No. 386.

The climbing spindle trees at Eunsusa, Natural Monument No. 380, grow at the northern limit of the species in inland Korea.

Maisan's conglomerate belongs to the Jinan Basin, a Cretaceous basin about 32 km long and 18 km wide opened by movement along strike-slip faults.

The gravels were laid down in a lake about 100 million years ago, and crustal movements lifted them into a mountain around 70 million years ago.

Maisan was first protected as a provincial monument in 1983, a status replaced in 2003 when it became Scenic Site No. 12.

Why it is worth it

Maisan rises from the Jinan plateau in North Jeolla Province as two bare, steep-sided rock peaks standing side by side, so alike in shape that since the early Joseon dynasty the mountain has been named for the ears of a horse: ma-i-san, "horse ear mountain". Under the Silla and Goryeo kingdoms it went by other names, but the image of the two pricked ears stuck. The higher of the two summits reaches about 687 metres. Maisan was designated a provincial park in 1979 and a national Scenic Site of Korea in 2003.

The peaks are made of conglomerate, a rock of pebbles and gravel cemented together, laid down around a hundred million years ago in a Cretaceous lake basin and later lifted by crustal movements; fossils of freshwater fish are still occasionally found. Seen from the south, the steep flanks are pitted with hollows, large and small, that look as if the rock had been shelled. These are tafoni, cavities that form when weathering works from inside the rock outward and pushes off the surface, and Maisan is regarded as an exceptionally rare example of the phenomenon. The mountain is part of the Jinan–Muju National Geopark.

Below the peaks lies one of Korea's most unusual sacred sites. At Tapsa, the "pagoda temple", some eighty conical towers of unmortared stones stand clustered against the cliff. Tradition holds that they were piled by Yi Gap-yong, a lay hermit who came to the mountain in 1885 and spent decades stacking stones without any binding material. Nearby, the hermitage of Eunsusa keeps a centuries-old pear tree and a colony of climbing spindle trees, both protected as natural monuments. Elders in Jinan also say that Maisan is the mountain pictured in the Irworobongdo, the screen of the sun, moon and five peaks that stood behind the throne of Joseon kings.

Getting there

Maisan lies about 4 km from the county seat of Jinan. The nearest airport is Gunsan Airport (KUV), about 74 km away in a straight line. The peaks are visible from the Saemangeum–Pohang Expressway, which passes through Jinan County.

Maisan

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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