Cycling the winding Donggang beneath Jeongseon’s towering cliffs

The bus to Jeongseon was already more than an hour late when an elderly terminal attendant admitted that the delay was unusually severe. For a traveler attempting a 96-kilometer day trip by bus and bicycle, the journey began with an unexpected test of patience.

The route from Pyeongchang to Jeongseon is a slow service over repeated mountain passes, following roads where traffic delays and difficult terrain make punctuality an unreliable expectation. When the bus finally arrived, only five or six passengers boarded in Pyeongchang. The sparse service helps explain why the route between the two counties is difficult to sustain.

Jeongseon itself once served as a logistics base for transporting high-quality timber from the upper Joyang River to Hanyang, the old name for Seoul. Local raft workers tied the timber into rafts and carried it downriver to Mapo Ferry, risking their lives for the chance to earn what was described as a fortune. Later, the inland waterway declined, and the coal boom also passed, leaving Jeongseon one of the most remote areas south of the Demilitarized Zone.

The trip pauses over local food, including kkondeungchigi noodles, a buckwheat dish named for its springy noodles striking the nose, and buckwheat pancakes wrapped around fresh kimchi. After leaving the town, the landscape changes quickly. Cornfields and layered green mountains line quiet riverbanks, while the northern road beside the Joyang River repeatedly narrows and loses its center line.

The main Donggang route begins near the Gwangha Visitor Information Center. Yellow signs offer playful warnings, but the rockfall notices are serious. Sharp stones lie beneath the towering “ppeongdae,” a Jeongseon dialect term for cliffs formed from Paleozoic strata. The area belongs to the Gangwon Paleozoic National Geopark, whose limestone and coal-bearing layers also contain caves formed during the Cambrian period, about 500 million years ago. Local residents distinguish the upper river as the Joyang River and the lower section toward Yeongwol as Donggang, with three prominent trees marking the approach to Gasuri.