The World’s First Mountain Biking Expedition to North Korea

The DPRK has a strong history of Buddhism, and we rode past many monasteries and pagodas – some of them 1000 years old. Many were decimated by US bombing raids during the Korean War, but have since been renovated. The caretaker at this monastery, on the flanks of Mount Myohyang, emerged to wave as we rode past and offered us apples from his tree.

Harald Philipp climbs a trail on the flanks of Mount Paektu. Winter temperatures here can fall to a biting -50C, and depictions of Paektu’s raging winter blizzards and harsh landscape are commonly used in propaganda to project the strength of the DPRK (The ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’, as North Korea calls itself). The DPRK’s leaders have historically delivered speeches from the summit of Mount Paektu.

Ri Un-Hyo, a DKPR Army tour guide, greets us at the birthplace of Kim Jong-Il. The North Koreans are very image-conscious and are generally quite reserved with visitors, but Ri herself descended into fits of laughter during the guided tour when we cracked some slapstick humour.

Like all other foreigners, we had to use a North Korean tour company to arrange our in-country logistics. Our accommodation ranged from family homestays and 3-star hotels in Pyongyang and Myohyang to the only tourist hotel in Samjiyong, near Mount Paektu. This old hotel with its creaking floorboards and vast, icy entrance lobby reminded us of the Stanley Hotel in The Shining. Its plumbing gurgled menacingly, and each room came equipped with an old CRT television and an ancient fridge. We shared its dining room with perhaps 60 other foreigners, all there on the same stopover to visit Paektu.

Going to North Korea was always going to be contentious, and it made funding this trip harder. With only half our total costs covered, we launched a crowd funder, offering postcards from North Korea as a reward. We sent 51 postcards, and finding them was an interesting activity in itself. They ranged from political illustrations to scenes of urban architecture; the most bizarre simply featured people gathered in a conference centre.

Derelict and crumbling (but nonetheless inhabited) towerblocks in downtown Pyongyang. The North Korean capital is reported to have a population of over 3 million.

Knowing that Myohyang’s UNESCO World Heritage forest harboured many hiking trails, we planned four days here, but found most of trails incredibly ambitious for mountain bikes. Mountain biking was our excuse to go and see inside North Korea, and although much of the riding was frustrating, we saw any good riding opportunities that came our way as a bonus. Carrying our bikes up Myohyang opened up many interactions with locals, who snapped photos and filmed us with their smartphones.

A stone tablet of DPRK propaganda greets Max and Harald as they cross a bridge over one of the many steep gorges that slash down the sides of Mount Myohyang. We expected to see plenty of propaganda in Pyongyang, but it came as a surprise deep in the forest. Here, verses extolling the virtues of the DPRK, often hand-chiselled into rocks, punctuate the popular hiking paths. This one celebrates the defeat of the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1945. The Japanese rule of Korea began in 1910 and ended at the conclusion of World War II in 1945, when U.S. and Soviet forces captured the peninsula.