O2 Resort is the only presently operating ski resort in South Korea that I haven’t personally been to. It re-opened a couple of years ago after being bought by new owners, but I broke my ribs a few days before I was going to go and check it out and I haven’t had the chance to go back since then due to covid.
O2 was built during the 90s/00s ski resort boom, with the selling point being its location in the Taebaek Mountains at a higher altitude than typical Korean resorts giving it (theoretically) better snow conditions. However, convenience is king in Korea and O2 failed to compete with resorts like High1 and Yongpyong which are of similar size but a bit closer to Seoul.
The same thing happened to Alps Resort further north which remains abandoned to this day, there are some cool pics here. Now that O2 has been given a new lease of life it’ll be interesting to see if it fares better this time.
I can’t give O2 a full review as I haven’t been yet, but I can at least help you get there if you want to give it a go. They do have an English website here but the travel information is only on the Korean site here – in a nutshell, you need to travel to Taebaek (which is the name of a town as well as the mountain range) and then make your way to the resort by taxi from the bus or train station. Coming from Seoul, Taebaek Station is 15 minutes further along the line after Gohan (which is the station you’d use for trains to High1). Note that O2’s opening hours are basically 9 to 5, so a day-trip from Seoul is a real mission as I estimate it’s a 4-hour journey each way. But if you’re at High1 and fancy a change of scenery for a day you can actually reach Taebaek directly from High1 by road in about 40 minutes, which would cost somewhere in the region of 35000 KRW by taxi.
If you’re reading this and planning to go (or have already been), I’d love to hear how it compares to High1 so please do leave a comment below!
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