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Horse Ear Mountain

Your first visual encounter with Mt. Maisan leaves you with no doubt about how it earned its name, which means “Horse Ear Mountain.” The mountain consists of two pointy peaks, Sutmaibong (“Male Horse Ear Peak,” 680m) and Ammaibong (“Female Horse Ear Peak,” 686m), which rise up dramatically from the plains below. According to legend, the mountains were originally gods who had been spotted by a human as they attempted to return to the heavens; trapped on Earth, they were turned into mountains. The geological explanation is no less inspiring. In the late Mesozoic Era, this area was a great fresh water lake. During a flood, the lake filled up with gravel, which water pressure transformed into sedimentary rock. Some 60—70 million years ago, the folding of the Earth’s crust elevated the landscape, turning the lake bed into a mountain. The elements later eroded the sedimentary rock into the two peaks you see today.
Because of the unique geological history of the mountain, Mt. Maisan offers hikers unusual scenery. The peaks are riddled with tafoni, small cave-like holes that honeycomb the granular stone cliffs. The resulting landscape is primordial, almost alien.
There are a number of hiking courses available, but the most popular by far takes you from the north parking lot up through the pass between the two peaks and down again to the south parking lot via Tapsa Temple. It requires 2.7km of walking, taking about two hours.

Tapsa Temple 탑사

Mt. Maisan’s otherworldly vibe is accentuated by its best known Buddhist temple, Tapsa. Tapsa translates as “Pagoda Temple,” and in this case, there is truth in advertising. The temple, flanked by dramatic tafoni-riddled cliffs, is home to about 80 conically shaped stone pagodas, some as high as nine meters. The pagodas were erected by a lay hermit, Yi Gap-yong (1860—1957), who moved to the temple at the age of 25 and spent the next 30 years of his life building the pagodas as a means of self cultivation. He built the pagodas entirely by hand using a rigorous process of laying stones in layers of progressively smaller concentric circles, producing the towers’ conical shape. This method also gave the towers strength—of the roughly 120 towers erected by Yi, most are still standing today. The bulk of the stone in the pagoda comes from Mt. Maisan itself, but some was collected by Yi from famous mountains throughout Korea.
The temple’s aura of mystery makes it a very popular destination for local tourists. There’s something of a carnival atmosphere in the courtyard in front of the temple, with restaurants, food tents, traders selling rock carvings, and even a bird cage with some splendid peacocks.