Mt. Jinba Trail

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After my last hike along the Mt. Jinba trail, in which I only made it over 2 mountains, I decided to go back today and see if I could tackle more! Of course, as per the euge, the weather on my "weekends" is terrifically awful, but I didn't let that stop me. I set out early this morning eager to see what I could with the admittedly crappy weather - overcast and rainy, though still very warm, which was nice. I ended up getting to Mt. Takao at about 10 AM, and wanted to take the longer trail I'd taken back in November, but opted instead for the Biwa Trail I took last time. I must have been bookin' it, because I made it to the summit in under an hour.

The clouds were hanging VERY low with the weather, and as such, you couldn't see much at the summit save for when the clouds broke and the other mountains in the distance could be seen! Apparently, the weather also really kept people from hiking, because I've never seen Takao's summit SO empty. It was like a ghost town! I downed a bottle of water and set off, since this time, I knew the direction of the path I wanted to take. I saw only one person on my hike to Shiroyama, and it rained on and off on me as I was going. After some obligatory pictures at Shiroyama's summit, I continued on, determined to make it to at least the next mountain on the trail - Kagenobu.

It continued to rain/drizzle on me, and I saw NO ONE on this trail at all, and arrived at Kagenobu a little wet but generally still in high spirits. There were a few other people at the summit of Kagenobu, and one of them was a trail runner who spoke really good English, so we had a short conversation. He mentioned that it was too bad it was raining, because you couldn't see anything from the mountains, and I agreed but thought it was probably keeping the temperature down a bit.

I knew that at Kagenobu, I could go down and get back to Sagami-ko station, where I ended up last time, or I could keep going to Mt. Jinba, the final mountain. I consulted one of the helpful trailhead markers to find that getting to the nearest station from Kagenobu would take 4.5 km, and getting to Mt. Jinba would take 5.9. Well, for THAT difference, I figured I might as well just do the whole thing! (Of course, this was only to the SUMMIT of Mt. Jinba.) Basically, Kagenobu is a little less than the halfway point between the two ends of the trail (Takaosanguchi Station to Jinba Kogen Shita bus stop - 19 km). I started off once more determined to finish the trail today.

There were a few people running the trail, and I immediately dismissed them as COMPLETELY INSANE, but after I watched a few of them, I thought maybe they were onto something. Instead of going slow over the inclines and declines made of gnarled roots, I started taking them at a low jog, and found that it was MUCH easier, particularly going up! I looked REALLY silly doing it, but hey, whatever works. The bit to Mt. Jinba was LONG - even just looking at some of the early signs, which calculated how far along the total 19 km route I was would tell me that I still had over 10 km to go until I reached the bus stop at the bottom. But I persevered!

A nice female hiker passed me maybe 3 km away from Mt. Jinba's summit and gave me an inspiring "you're almost there!" bit, which was really nice. The last 3 or 4 km of the route to Jinba's summit were really tough, and man did I feel awesome when I finally got there! And wet, since basically the last 7 km of my hike it rained pretty continuously, haha. I ran into the same hiker at the summit, who nicely volunteered to take a photo of me with the famous, iconic white horse statue, supposedly to promote tourism to the area.

I had a little trouble finding the route down, and then even more trouble actually taking it, since the rains had made it all very slick. I knew it would be hard, but it was tough to take it slow when I was SO READY to be off that mountain, haha. I did fall a few times... whoops. Haha but once I heard the river I knew I was close to the bottom, and then once I GOT there, I had another 1.3 km walk to the actual station - what a joke!! ajskdjfkdsjfkjs hahaha I did not need that extra 1.3 km. I ended up only having to wait about 20 minutes for the bus, which took me back to Takao Station, and from there I came home and WASHED ALL OF THE MUD AND GRIME FROM MY BODY. Which wants to die. Hahaha, what a hard but rewarding and enjoyable day!!

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