Cheonbong-hoe holds photo exhibition and book launch in Seoul
A Seoul climbing club of retirees aged 60 to 80 marks ten years of roped-together ascents on rock and ice walls with a commemorative photo exhibition and a 330-page photo essay at Gallery Arisu in Insadong, running November 18 to 24. The club, Insusbong Cheonbeon Origi (known as Cheonbong-hoe), will show 44 photographs and hold its official ceremony on November 18 at 4 p.m., Financial Review reported.
The exhibition, titled “Ten Years of Companionship, a Thousand Ascents,” opens the same day at Gallery Arisu, 13 Insadong 11-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul. A separate celebration for acquaintances is set for November 23 at 5 p.m. at the same venue.
Retirees who put down age and title at the cliff face
Cheonbong-hoe was formed by seniors who retired after careers of public service across various fields. Rather than limiting themselves to walking hikes, the members have climbed rock faces and ice walls, including Insusbong in Bukhansan National Park, along traditional rock routes in what the club calls a “climbing odyssey.”
The club’s driving force has been less the summit than the rope. Members connect their bodies with a single line, and on difficult sections they willingly reach back to help the climber behind them. That process of mutual trust, more than any athletic record, is what has sustained the group for a decade.
“Before rock walls and ice walls, we put down our age and our titles,” said Lee Ki-seong, the club’s president. “A thousand ascents were not a record but a ten-year promise we walked together.”
44 photographs and a four-part book at Gallery Arisu
The exhibition displays 44 photographs taken by Jeon Hyung-seok between 2017 and September of this year: 42 individual portraits and two group shots. The images range from climbers hanging on vertical rock faces to scenes on snowy peaks and ice walls, plus members laughing together at summits.
Alongside the show, the club is publishing a photo essay, A Thousand Ascents, written by Jeon Wan-geun. The 330-page volume is divided into four parts: individual climbing records, group activities, a look at the future of senior mountaineering, and a photographic retrospective. Twenty-one people, including Lee, Jeon Hyung-seok, and Jeon Wan-geun, took part in the exhibition and book project.
The club says the book goes beyond a simple hiking log. It documents how seniors, after retirement, set shared goals and accumulated new experiences rather than confining their later years to rest or casual hobbies.
What a decade of senior climbing says about aging Seoul
The club’s model arrives as South Korea’s population ages and the culture of retirement leisure shifts. Instead of treating post-career life as a period of withdrawal, Cheonbong-hoe’s members have used physical challenge suited to their fitness and experience to keep social ties alive.
For retirees weighing how to spend their later years, senior mountaineering clubs that emphasize roped safety and peer support offer one structured path, while those organizing commemorative events can find gallery spaces in cultural districts such as Insadong that host exactly this kind of community exhibition.
November 18 ceremony, November 23 gathering, exhibition through the 24th
The official commemorative ceremony takes place November 18 at 4 p.m. at Gallery Arisu. The exhibition itself runs through November 24. Visitors seeking directions can find the gallery at 13 Insadong 11-gil in Jongno-gu, in the heart of Seoul’s Insadong arts quarter.
Lee said the club will use the photographs and the book to present the decade as it was actually lived — not as a tally of climbs, but as a promise kept between people who kept showing up for one another.