The mountain is also home to the Cheonghak-dong (Azure Crane Village) alpine valley, which includes the Samseonggung (Three Sages Palace), which is a site celebrating one of Korea's foundation myths.

These are ‘Sunrise from Cheonwang-bong peak’, ‘Nogodan Sea of Clouds’, ‘Banyabong’s Nakjo’, ‘Full moon at Byukso-ryung’, ‘Piagol Autumn Leaves’, ‘Royal Azalea Blossoming’, ‘Chilseon Valley’, ‘Seomjincheongryu’, ‘Buril water fall’, ‘Yeonha-Sunkyung’.

This temple practiced an annual rite on the Chilwolbaekjung holiday (full moon day of July by the lunar calendar) wherein they selected the most pious monk and prayed earnestly for his safe passage to paradise as a deity.

In a certain year, the then highest monk Seosandaesa visited the temple, heard about this Buddhist rite, and guessed that there must be a secret behind it.

At around 1 am, an imugi anaconda, which was sorry not to have turned into a dragon, slithered up from the valley below Sinseondae Terrace to the sound of roaring water.

Early in the morning, he, together with the villagers, went to Sinseondae Terrace to find that the imugi had died, having failed to swallow the whole body of the monk.

Starting from Ssanggyesa (the sa suffix indicates a Buddhist temple), the peak can be reached in four hours at a steady pace.

South Korea issued an "Anti-Guerrilla Warfare Service Medal" for its troops who fought in the area[5] and a movie about the fighting was later produced.

[6] An earlier film, Piagol, about a group of North Korean soldiers in the area, was released the year the fighting ended.