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0While visiting S. Korea, my daughter (age 4) had dreams of a wintery wonderland as soon as she heard it would be cold. Seoul, where we are spending much of our trip, tends not to quite have that “magical winter wonderland” vibe she was imagining, as the snow quickly turns to dirty slush on the city streets. My Thailand-born girl hasn’t experienced much real snow before, so we were determined to get some snow-play in at least one of the days we were here. I wanted to head out to a ski resort where she could have some fun and play in the snow, but since she is only 4 and I am pregnant, I knew the options of what we could actually do were quite limited. When I heard that Elysian Ski Resort has a small sledding hill and it’s conveniently accessible from the Seoul Metro I was sold! We did it as a day trip from Seoul and had a great day playing in the snow.
Elysian Ski Resort is pretty comparable to many resorts around Korea. It is relatively small and sits on the grounds of a larger, year-round resort with a base, hotel and condos, and a golf course. The highest lift-accessible point is 853 feet and there’s a drop of 564 feet. It’s longest run is almost a mile long. There’s 8 total runs which are accessed by 6 lifts. The resort is best for those skiers looking for a convenient place to ski near Seoul. It was a perfect place for us to go to play in the snow for the day and for my little one to experience snow for the first time, but it pales in comparison with the Colorado mountains I’m used to.
Other positives of the resort include that there’s a very flexible ticketing schedule. For skiing your lift ticket starts at the time you purchase it and runs for 4 hours. There’s a snow grooming break from 5:30pm-7pm so you’d be well advised to purchase your daytime lift pass by 1:30pm if you don’t want to be forced to take a mandatory break. They also have night skiing available, and impressively long hours (They are open from 9am to 4am on weekends and until 2 am on weekdays).
Sledding Hill at Elysian Gangchon Ski Resort
I’d love to teach my daughter to ski and if I weren’t pregnant we would have been asking all about what age they start allowing kids to ski. However, our real goal was to get out into the mountains and see a bit of snow, and for her to get the chance to play in snow. The sledding hill was perfect for us. It’s relatively reasonably priced (18,000 won for adults and 13,000 for kids) even though they made me buy a ticket to go in even though I didn’t ride the sleds. Unlike their lift tickets which run for 4 hours from when you purchase them, the sledding hill is operated on a session by session basis. So, you purchase tickets for “Morning” (9am-12am), “Day A” (12pm-3pm), “Day B” (3pm-6pm) or “Night” (6pm-8pm). Do take note of the time you enter the sledding hill as your entry is technically only good for that session. So, if for instance, you started sledding at 2:50 pm, your time would technically be finished 10 minutes later (although in practice no one was enforcing this very strictly during our visit).
We had planned to sled during the 12pm-3pm slot but got there much later than we expected. However, I’m glad that we did as that time slot was much busier than the 3pm-6pm time slot and for quite a lot of the time my cutie had the hill all to herself! The ski patrol guy even joined in on the fun (and helped her up the hill!). Not sure if he was bored or if he felt sorry for how many times this pregnant mama walked up and down the hill!
Base Camp Facilities at Elysian Ski Resort
The base camp facilities at Korean ski resorts tend to be quite nice. Here, you’ll find several options for dining, equipment rental, shops, changing rooms, lockers, and most anything you could need to enjoy a day on the slopes.
Where to Stay near Elysian Ski Resort
If you’d like to spend a few days, or an overnight (that metro trip is long!), then you have a few options near the resort. If you’d like to book a room at Elysian Gangchon’s Resort Hotel where you’ll have door-to-door access to the ski slopes as well as on-site sauna facilities and dining, you can click here to book on booking.com.
You could also stay in the nearby city of Chuncheon which has several options for hotels. Gapyeong is also a good option of a place to look for nearby accommodation, especially if you plan to visit Nami Island or other Gapyeong attractions. Both Chuncheon and Gapyeong are a few stops away from Elysian in either direction.
How to Get to Elysian Ski Resort
The reason we chose this resort in the first place is that we didn’t have to do any advance planning or booking to get there. You can take either the regular Seoul Metro or the ITX train. The resort is located in Gangwon-do province, but it’s one of the easiest to get to from Seoul, if not the easiest.
Elysian is just a short distance away from Baegyang-ri Station and although you could theoretically walk it, there’s a shuttle bus that travels regularly between the metro station and the resort so there’s no need to. If you’d prefer to book a 1-day trip that includes everything you need including lift tickets, equipment rental and transportation from Seoul to the resort, you can do so here at Klook.com (The price is better than a la carte if you need to rent gear.)
In order to travel there independently, you can take regular subway trains on the Gyeongchun Line. The regular subway train takes just under an hour to travel from Sangbong to Baegyang-ri. This is the cheapest train option with the whole route being covered by your metro fare, but it can take approximately 2 hours from some parts of Seoul. (It took us about that long from Myeongdong but we also walk at 4-year old pace).
You can alternatively catch the ITX-Cheongchun from Yongsan Station in Central Seoul. The ticket is a bit more expensive but is much faster as it only stops at some stations. You can get there from Yongsan in about an hour. The ITX doesn’t stop here year round, only in the busiest part of the ski season so double check the schedule before you head out the door, especially if you are traveling very early or very late in the ski season.
We’ve also heard that Elysian Gangchon operates a shuttle bus from Seoul to the resort free of charge however it wasn’t working when we were attempted to go home, so perhaps double check with the resort.
Once you arrive at Baegyang-ri station you can find the resort shuttle bus in the parking lot near the exit marked for Elysian Gangchon. It operates approximately every 20 minutes and the schedule for the day was marked on a sign near the metro exit. The day we were there it ran until 10pm.
Visit Elysian Gangchon Ski Resort on a Convenient Tour
If you’d rather have someone else do the planning, Klook.com offers a great price on a trip to Elysian which includes gear rental, lift tickets and all transportation. Book this tour here.
For other articles related to Korea, check out our Korea Page!
