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Published: November 15th 2012
Today we hiked Takao-san!
Takao-san is a mountain only an hour away from Shinjuku, so it's a very popular place for people from Tokyo and the surrounding cities to go hiking. I particularly wanted to go after getting The Lonely Planet's "Hiking in Japan" guide to see the autumn colors - they have really started going here, finally, and they are gorgeous! Of course, being 紅葉 (autumn colors) season, it was very busy. But at least we did it on a weekday, since those are my "weekends" after all. I went with Chandra and Peter, a colleague of mine.
It took about an hour to get out there from where we are, and then we had to choose what trail we wanted to go up. We ended up going the No. 6 trail, which is one of the longest (3.3 km) and it was TOUGH to take some of those stairs! There were a lot of people doing it, but the bulk of the hikers seemed to be taking the cable car, which leaves you with only a half hour hike to the summit. Ours was about 90 minutes to the top.
And the colors were really nice!
It was a great hike, really, aside from the fact that I am horrendously out of shape and the stairs were killer. The summit was also really nice, but obviously really, really busy. We stopped to take some pictures of Mt. Fuji, visible in the distance, and then to get some drinks and chocolate almonds to regain some of our sugar and strength. We sat for awhile and enjoyed the scenery and intense crowds, and then decided to skip the trail down with the shrine and instead take the Nature Research Trail, No. 4, I think, which was MUCH less crowded and went over the suspended bridge.
I was really glad that Peter was with us, because he'd done it several times and knew the extra little things. Instead of heading back to the beginning, we split off after the Buddhist temple and waterfall area and went towards the other station, Takao Station, which added a good length to our walk and took us by the river and under the expressway to the Hakone area. This part was REALLY quiet - only a few other people doing it. Basically we were going down the other side of the mountain
from where we came.
It was such a fun time! The weather was PERFECT for it, and I never needed my extra jacket, though I did get a bit cold towards the end. My feet are aching tonight, and it was definitely a lot of work, but I'm super glad we got to do it. All in all, our hike distance was something like 8km, which is pretty impressive I think for amateurs. 😊
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