Azernews.Az

The 2025 Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival, one of South Korea's most popular winter events, kicked off Saturday in the northeastern county of Hwacheon, offering nearly a month of ice fishing and seasonal activities, Azernews reports, citing Yonhap.

The festival, set to run through Feb. 2, opened in the remote mountain town in Gangwon Province, located just 25 kilometers south of the inter-Korean border and about 90 km northeast of Seoul.

In the festival, participants try to catch "sancheoneo," a species of mountain trout, through holes cut in the surface of a vast frozen river, as well as take part in barehanded fishing, sledding and other events.

As early as 8:30 a.m., the frozen Hwacheon stream was crowded with hundreds of visitors clad in thick winter jumpers who gathered to catch the sancheoneo.

The visitors carefully lowered their rods into the ice holes, with some of them soon erupting in cheers as they reeled in the rod with freshly caught trout.

"I came early in the morning from Seoul to celebrate my kid's birthday," a participant, identified only by his last name Kim, said. "I come every year but this year I plan to enjoy the Sancheoneo Ice Festival as well as a nighttime concert at Seon Deung Street."

Outdoor grilling areas were set up nearby for tourists to barbecue the fish.

The Hwacheon festival has attracted more than 1 million visitors almost every year since its launch in 2003, making headlines worldwide with thousands of tourists also taking part in other events at the festival such as bare-hand fishing and sledding.

The festival turned Hwacheon, with a population of just 23,000, into a global wintertime festival city of South Korea.

In 2011, a leading global news organization introduced the festival as one of the world's seven wonders of winter.

Last January, the New York Times named the event one of five "must-see festivals in Asia" in winter that year.

The festival attracts around 100,000 foreigners annually.