About Bidulginang Falls (bidulginang pokpo [비둘기낭폭포])
Bidulginang Falls (Bidulginang Pokpo [비둘기낭폭포]) was a series of springs and waterfalls spilling in front of as well as beside a cave cut from erosion at the base of a basalt cliff within the Bidulginang Gorge.
Sometimes this waterfall is also referred to on the maps as the Bidulginang Cascade.
Speaking of the name, it’s said that the area around the cave and waterfall resembled a pigeon’s pouch or bag, which is literally how “bidulginang” translates.
It’s also said that such pigeons tend to inhabit the cave behind the falls further reinforcing the place name.
Given it’s rather hidden location in the depths of a gorge, this place had a bit of some Korean War history as the cave was used as a shelter during the war as well as a recreation area for soldiers.
These days, this waterfall has been featured on a variety of K-dramas and movies, and I suspect that this causes the falls to gain even greater notoriety with respect to tourism, especially with foreign visitors (like myself).
That said, as you can see in the photos on this page, my early June 2023 visit wasn’t well-timed apparently as the waterflow was on the low side (which I’d imagine it would get revived after the mid- to late-Summer monsoons).
As for the visit, I basically followed a well-developed and well-signed walkway from the car park (see directions below) to a signed fork, where the trail then descended steps into the gorge.
From the top of the steps, I could already see the context of the cave and the Bidulginang Falls, but there’s also a lookout at the bottom of the steps for an even closer and more intimate look at the cave and falls.
According to my trip logs, the walk to just this lookout and back was a mere 500-600m.
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However, I also lingered around longer to check out the rest of the walking path, which led me past an interesting riverbed geology exhibit, another lookout further downstream of the Bidulginang Cascade, and an observatory of the Hantangang River.
At that observatory, I was able to see parts of the much wider Hantangang River, which the Bidulginang Cascade feeds into, as well as an intriguing suspension bridge (which itself is a separate paid excursion to go on it).
Thus, I spent about an hour away from the car, but if I didn’t linger around, this visit could have easily taken around 15 minutes or so.
Authorities
Bidulginang Falls resides near the Daehoesan-ri village in Pocheon-si county of the Gyeonggi-do Province, South Korea. It is administered by the Hantangang River Geopark as well as local authorities. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting this website.
Bidulginang Falls or Bidulginang Cascade is in the Hantangang Geopark near Pocheon.
Rather than confuse you with a bunch of turn-by-turn directions that won’t mean anything to you, I’ll just tell you that it’s best to use a Korean routing software on a phone that’s hooked up to the Korean Network (we prefer using a SIM card for this).
I actually drove here from the Jiktang Falls, but I used the Kakao Map app to get me to the Bidulginang Falls typing in 비둘기낭폭포 as the destination (도착) in the search.
This took me roughly 35 minutes on mostly local roads (again lots of speed bumps and school zones).
If you’re coming from the city center of Seoul, then use Kakao Map app to help you get through all the city driving onto the expressways and then the local roads near the falls.
In my case, I had set up the starting point (출발) from the Lotte City Hotel near Myeongdong District in Seoul, where we were based.
This approach would take about 2 hours barring traffic and/or detours to go the 80km distance.
It’s worth noting that there’s another car park nearby that’s for a suspension bridge going over the Hantangang River Gorge.
But what you’re really interested in if you’re only pursuing the Bidulginang Pokpo is to get to the car park in the Hantangang River Geopark.
There should be brown signs (I recalled there were both bilingual signs as well as more of them that only had the place name in Hangeul) to help you find this place.
For geographical context, Pocheon is about 55km (under 90 minutes drive) north of the city center of Seoul and 70km (about 90 minutes drive) northwest of Chuncheon City.
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Elevated downstream to upstream sweep from before the descent to the very bottom
Downstream to upstream sweep from the bottom observatory in front of the falls and alcove
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