Vegetation phenology is the most important indicator of ecosystem response to climate change. Therefore it is necessary to continuously monitor forest phenology. This paper analyzes the phenological characteristics of forests in South Korea using the MODIS vegetation index with error from clouds or other sources removed using the HANTS algorithm. After using the HANTS algorithm to reduce the noise of the satellite-based vegetation index data, we were able to confirm that phenological transition dates varied strongly with altitudinal gradients. The dates of the start of the growing season, end of the growing season and the length of the growing season were estimated to vary by +0.71day/100m, -1.33day/100m and -2.04day/100m in needleleaf forests, +1.50day/100m, -1.54day/100m and -3.04day/100m in broadleaf forests, +1.39day/100m, -2.04day/100m and -3.43day/100m in mixed forests. We found a linear pattern of variation in response to altitudinal gradients that was related to air temperature. We also found that broadleaf forests are more sensitive to temperature changes compared to needleleaf forests.