lost or what?

Here is the view from Kintetsu-Yokkaichi station, where I changed trains to the Yunoyama line, which I would take to the last station.

Behold - Yunoyama Onsen station. That is not today's mountain behind it. Great weather in the morning.

The walk from the station to the actual onsen area is about 3 or 4km, along a road, but this is the kind of view you will get. I believe there is a bus, good luck with that.

I remembered taking similar shots last time I was here. Yes I have hiked in this area before, to the top of Mount Gozaisho, but last time in 2015 I took a completely different trail.

Here is the onsen area. It is quite run down, a lot of abandoned buildings and no convenience store! There is none at Yunoyama Onsen station either, so once again, safest to get what you need before leaving Nagoya.

Mount Gozaisho is up there, you can see the cable car going up. It would be my last peak of the day as I will go on a huge loop course.

A red bridge.

A bit more onsen. With so many photos a lot of my descriptions will be brief.

First I will head in that direction. It looks nice, should be easy enough.

I joined a 'trail' at this flood control area, and immediately got lost.

Great sky.

So far so good, this was still obviously a trail.

Hmm, ok there is a way up and around this.

I could get a view briefly at the top of the flood wall... but then...

I spent the next 3 or so hours in a valley making very little progress.

The stream seems to be the trail and I had to cross it 50 times. Thankfully there were ribbons in the trees. I was following my GPS sort of, but I feel the actual trail is mostly destroyed.

After climbing out of the valley via tree roots, I got to this sign. Yes I had taken the expert course somehow by accident.

But we were not done yet. Great moss.

More mini waterfalls to climb.

More rocks to scramble over.

But eventually, I climbed out of the valley once and for all, and there was autumn to behold.

I will eventually go to that peak on the right. You can see the buildings on top of it where the cable car goes to. It looks very far away, but first I will head further away from it.

This section was very steep and sandy, but I appreciated the lack of creek.

Almost at the top. I had already come from all the way down there where you can see a town.

Redundant view shot.

The other direction. A bit more sun would have made for brighter looking shots.

This is the peak of Kamagadake. Alltrails needs to update their map for this hike.

There is a shrine at the top, and other people who have climbed around from Gozaisho, probably after taking the cable car. These were the first people I had seen all day! I never saw anyone else down in the creek filled ravines.

Some more nice clouds. I wish that guy was not sitting there.

Time to head half way down again from Kamadake to go up Gozaisho. It was also steep.

Nice rocks. There will be a lot more rocks.

You can see Gozaisho up there. It still looks far away.

The trail was much more defined now, I would not get lost anymore.

Well defined but steep!

But also with signs of autumn.

I am running out of things to type.

OK, that peak to the right of the rocky outcrop is Kamagadake, where I had come down from.

More rocks, that pink ribbon on the tree is to show you the way when it snows. Although I was reliant on them in the valley / ravine earlier.

That is also Kamagadake where I had come down from.

Yes! Look at my awesome nose. I can breathe a lot more air than regular humans.

Here is a nice smooth part of the trail, a rare relatively flat section, with low bamboo.

Getting closer to Gozaisho, that looks like a massive staircase.

Getting really close now, and this is clearly an actual staircase.

Here is the summit of Gozaisho, it is a bit away from the cable car top station, but there is a paved path to walk over... or a chairlift as you shall soon see.

Apparently this is also a ski resort. There were a few buildings dotted around.

There is the top cable car station and restaurants. I will wander up and have a look. Last time I was here it was really windy and the cable cars were not running for a few hours. There was an immense line of elderly people waiting for a way down. I had no issues going down on foot, but I do recall nearly getting blown off the mountain... I guess that would have been an issue.

Looking back on Kamagadake over on the right.

OK it is a ski resort of sorts, and here you can see the chairlift that goes up to the top of Gozaisho. It looks like I could have ran down the grass area, there are people walking down there. Next time maybe.

Here is restaurant 1 of 2.

And restaurant 2 of 2. Note some really old bent over people are here enjoying lunch. I did not sit down for lunch as I was filthy dirty. I did buy an ice cream from a vending machine. I was also running out of daylight.

I climbed up to the top floor to the cable car museum, and got this excellent view down.

But for me it was time to go down on foot. And it was really steep!

This is the best I could do to prove I did not take the cable car down. You can see one of them here if you look carefully. I saw only one other person on the 2 hour journey down.

There was the occasional section of big rocks.

And still some autumn colours.

The sun was about to go behind the mountain, so it came back out from the cloud briefly.

And then finally I was back at the onsen. Nice cloud. Abandoned buildings.

As a reminder, that is Gozaisho. I am now far from it on my journey back to the train station. It was getting dark but at this point I was back on a road.

And finally, back at the station. Thankfully the train came almost right away, and it was a very quick journey back to Nagoya, just over an hour. Epic hike, long day, tonight's outing will be brief.