lost or what?

First up, I went looking for early coffee, on a Sunday. Impossible. Instead I boarded the train to cross the city to Ome where it was 8am by the time I arrived which means coffee was then available. No coffee before 8am on Sunday in Japan! I will get elected on changing this to 6am.

I changed trains at Tokyo station, and enjoyed some liminal space all to myself. OK, apparently liminal also is not a word, despite liminal space being the cool thing for kids to say these days.

Here is Ome station. If you continue along this line you will get to Okutama via Mitake. It is a popular route on Sunday's for hikers, they run a couple of holiday special rapid services that only stop 4x from Tokyo to Ome. These are not limited express trains, just regular price ones that stop at only a couple of major stations. Ome is the very start of the valley with mountains on both sides, hence it is the start of the Ome hills route.

I crossed over the tracks and passed a cat cafe. No time for feline fondling today.

The view from the bridge. I cannot resist a train track photo.

No need to go to Fushimi Inari. This is where I joined the trail, although there are many places you can start from.

I picked a few tasty mushrooms to snack on all day. Maybe I could send some back to a remote church community in Australia to commit mass murder with?

It seems I chose a lesser used trail to join the main trail from. Fallen trees and lots of spider webs, which accurately confirm no one else has walked along here recently.

But then as soon as you join the main trail, lots of other people. As you shall see parts of it are wide enough to drive a car down.

A surprise abandoned Buddhist temple, complete with a gold statue inside. There were a few construction vehicles scattered around suggesting they might be trying to fix it up, but also a lot of falling down sheds full of rocks and rusty bits of previously fallen down sheds.

Behold, the main view photo of the day. Not much view today.

Next I passed an orchard. There was a nearby sign warning of a bear sighting in June 2023.

There are a lot of side trails to go on over little peaks such as this one. But none have a clear view down.

The main trail seems to come and go. This bit is over the other side of the ridge complete with retaining wall.

But then it becomes narrow in places. It does not really make sense.

I like the ankle snapping tree route trails.

Thankfully Japan's relentless logging industry provides the occasional suggestion of a view.

Grey clouds all day, but no rain to speak of, yet.

And then right at the end of the journey, Mount Raiden. The mountain named after the dude from Mortal Kombat. No view at all. Also just to the left of the photo there were a bunch of Ham radio nerds with their various antennas hanging from trees. They really did not want their photo taken, as I arrived they said 'please no photo', so I did not photo. I kind of wonder if they were spreading last minute election misinformation.

The path down was very well maintained with an almost brand new staircase.

And then I exited to the road, and realised I have been to this road junction before. On the last hike of my last trip, I took the left fork here and went to Mount Takamizu. On my first hike of this trip I came down the right fork from Mount Raiden. I did not plan this and had no idea I would pass this point until I got here.

Approaching the sky train.

Here come some other hikers who I would guess are doing the Mitake gorge trail as it starts / ends here, in the middle of nowhere. There is a station here but not really a town.

And here is the station. Tiny. I probably photographed it last year when I would of got off here to go to Mount Takamizu. Today I will get on here to get back to Tokyo. Short hike today but I almost fell asleep on the train on the way back!