12 November 2024
Short steep and slow
Washigatake from Echizen-Takehara station
The farmers have started burning crops and plastic.
My train ride today was up a very picturesque smoke filled valley to Echizen-Takehara station. I will actually go further up the valley on the same line tomorrow to go to the dinosaur museum, but today I went on the first of 2 small hikes in the Fukui area. It was steep and lonely. I passed one guy at the bottom who was very concerned about the shorts I was wearing, which I suspect was because part of the trail was overgrown with blackberry type things with prickles. More on the prickles later. I also passed another guy 2/3 of the way up who was already on his way down. Other than that, just me and the many spiders. Big spiders too. Long spindly colourful ones. Now for the stats.
22,700 steps
13.81km
4 hours 31 minutes
785m vertical ascent (felt like more)
1,408 calories burned (more than the previous much longer hike)
Here is Echizen-Takehara station. Very picturesque. It is about 2.5km from the station to the start of the trail.
I had to cross this nice bridge.
And then some fields. Great scenery.
A Family mart in the fields, it would be great if there were no cars parked around it. I bought my pocari sweat and muesli bars.
This is a bus stop. But is there a bus? I have doubts.
There is a shrine at the start of the hike, I will pay it a proper visit on the way down.
Surprisingly, they have a sign in book at the start of the trail. And the obligatory bear warning sign. This is only a very short hike so I am not sure why they want people to sign in.
The trail was mostly well defined, but overgrown in places. There is one section in the middle that had eroded away where you might slip off the trail, but you would not fall too far.
The low down bits were woody.
First view, in high contrast.
More view. Look at those farmers fires, grr.
Surprise giant rock.
Then the trail got nice and colourful.
View across to the next mountain. The looks like a road zig zagging up it, but if it is a road it is not on any map.
Nice.
The trail started to become a bit overgrown.
More colour.
More view of the smoky valley.
Summit time. Nowhere to even sit.
View further up the valley.
And back towards Fukui.
My train station is down there somewhere.
Here I am. I was very sweaty today. It is still hot.
Time to go back down, the same way I came up.
At times I had to duck under branches.
Half way down, back into the woods.
Steep. But it is impossible to photograph steep, as I often say.
Last bit of the trail.
And right at the bottom, a rather small shrine, but it has a few statues.
My socks were filled with prickles. Despite walking through a few blackberry bushes, my shins were scratch free.
The view across the fields up the valley on my jog back to the station were great.
Last pic for the day as I cross back over the bridge.