15 November 2017
Between the tracks
Hiking from Musashi-Itsukaichi to Mitake over multiple peaks
Its my last full day in Japan, so I decided to hike from one train line to another.
My journey went west, with the hiking starting at Musashi-Itsukaichi, last station on the aptly named Itsukaichi line, heading up along a loooong ridge over Asoyama, Hinodesan and arriving at the upper cable car station of Mitakesan, before ignoring the cable car and running down the service road to the station on the Ome line at Mitake.
The scenery was fantastic, so I took a lot of photos, especially the scenery at Mitake at the end which had nothing much to do with the hike.
Getting back from Mitake took over 2 hours, which I was not expecting. When I sat down, the guy next to me decided to clean his ears, with a hook thing, and a tissue to wipe large amounts of wax into. This was very concerning.
More concerning was when the train started to empty out a bit, some people were still standing, every other seat was full including the ones reserved for old people, yet I had 5 empty seats next to me! The carriage rearranged themselves to not sit near me. Racism at its finest.
So thats it, final hike over, feet still in perfect condition, all hail my shoes. I think I managed to fit in more good hikes than any previous trip despite missing 1 due to my mild cold. This can only be achieved in Japan due to the combination of mountains and trains.
Now onto the pics, whilst I think about what to have for my last dinner on this trip.
I think I type whilst too often when I should type while.... I also use '.....' way to often, using it at all is too often.
After a relatively fast train ride compared to the extended ride home, I arrived at Musashi-Itsukaichi station. A nice, quite large town. I stocked up on calorie mate and pocari sweat and got going. I had read this hike would take 7 hours.....
It didnt, I covered the nearly 25km in just over 5 hours, but that involved lots of running.
The first part of the hike took me up a well manicured path to a temple. It was more like a large informal garden. This actually made it a bit annoying, as there were lots of paths, I decided just to keep heading up.
There were even tunnels of camelia bushes like this near the temple itself.
I may be old, but I am not yet old enough to go birding. Theres lots of birds to see though.
I noticed later on there were solar sensors mounted in some trees with cameras and infra red lights to film things at night. Bears or birds?
The view of Itsukaichi, and other cities up the valley beyond from the temple.
The temple itself was a bit underwhelming for such a path and garden. Although there were strangely no other people. The weather was very good if a little grey, but the sun was making an occasional appearance.
It was now ridge time, with big trees, no view for hours. This was a rare glimpse of a view, nice wires.
The ridge trail was up hill the whole way, but pleasently so, I ran most of it. There was one group of other people, I later worked out they had caught the cable car up and were hiking downhill all day.
Lazy, I do not respect you.
There was quite a lot of logging in this area, and I could hear chainsaws. Logged areas provided an opportunity for a view. Thats Tokyo in the distance.
Logging AND wires. A winning combination.
It wasnt all cedars, you can see some yellow / red leafed (leaved?) trees here also.
Great light for this photo, with the logged trees replanted for future logging. They need a lot of logs in Japan to keep making steps on hiking trails.
And after a few hours, I was at the summit of Hinodesan, and there were suddenly other people, I would soon realise why.
Across the valley there is the upper cable car station, the path between Hinodesan and Mitakesan was very well maintained staircases.
Still the brave souls that have made the 20 minute trek across from the cable car have put on all their alpine gear.
Have a bit more of the same view, I now realise this was almost the same as the other photo!
And heres my huge stupid head to ruin the shot, maybe for the last time on this trip!
After the short skip across the valley to Mitakesan, I found myself in tourist paradise, with streets of little restaurants and chopstick shops. Its quite high up, the road down is an amazing engineering feat as I would discover....
Just look at these wonderfully maintained steps to the top with colorful trees and stone tablets declaring a shinto-fatwa on non pure blooded Japanese.
Have some over-exposed leaf view. Colors nearly blew up my camera.
The shrine / temple on the top was extensive and possibly brand new, like the steps leading up to it.
Further behind it is an older bit not many people were interested in.
Hmmm, still more mountains. Actually ALLLLL the mountains around this area have extensive hiking trails, hundreds of them!
Time to head down. I skipped what I thought was a cable car which is actually a fernicular (cable pulled) railway. Japan has painted the track through the forest bright red, cause historic.
This is the bottom of the 7km road down from the top station. It was quite an amazing piece of engineering, uncomfortably steep. Cars going up it would surely overheat.
I thought I was at the bottom, but no, still a lot more steep road. This is a wider road cars drive up to get to the bottom station of the cable railway, and those that went past me did indeed smell like they were burning.
Finally I came out on the main highway, what a vista! I thought this would be the last photo, but no....
Other than the wires, what an amazing view! This was a footbridge across the river. The people down there are fly fishing.
The photos are not doing the scale of this justice, also the lights a bit crap in this one, but thats fine, more to come!
In the middle of the town of Mitake theres another bridge across. I was early for the train so I got to walk over.
Down there is a kayaker battling the current.
And then surely, saving the best photo for last. The amazing river, the mountains, the town on the side of the cliff.
A great day indeed. I will one day come back to Mitake and climb more mountains, at least ten hikes start from here. The town was full of cyclists, rock climbers, kayakers etc.
I was amazed when the train came that the platform at this remote station in the valley with no phone coverage was completely full on a week day.