Japan for the 9th time - Oct and Nov 2019 - Page 8

Okutama is the kicking off point for many hikes. It is very likely one of my two remaining hikes will also start from here.

Today I got the holiday special liner, which is a direct train from Shinjuku that splits in half, half goes up the Ome line to Okutama, half goes to Musashi-Itsukaichi. Make sure you are on the right half! The carriages say where they are going to on the outside, but theres no way to know on the inside.

I took a couple of gorge shots before I set off. The light was not great at this time of day. Check out last years visit instead!

Heres another gorge shot.

And here is a view of the little town of Okutama going up the hill. It is a very busy place, lots of hiking shops, 2 convenience stores. Lets get hiking!

Soon after the hike starts, a huge steep staircase. Look how it gets steeper the further up it goes. Unexpected!

At the top, of course there was a shrine.

Nice shrine, but too many trees, no view.

This is the best view through the trees I could find. The loudspeakers from the school sports day were hilariously loud. You can see the sports field below.

There were trees nearly all day today, logging provided most views. Here is some logging due to power lines.

The first couple of hours up were quite tricky in places. Lots of rocks and tree trunks. Also quite colorful.

Very picturesque.

A nice view across the valley. I have climbed that mountain last year! Mount Kawanori I think, that was a great hike.

As there often is, there were a few makeshift shrine areas. Makeshift is probably not the right word.

Really nice rocks and foliage. I dont get to say foliage very often.

Here are some of the tree roots. These combined with jagged rocks and often covered in leaves meant it was slow going at times.

Then there were the sections of ladders and chains! Nothing too dangerous, this is probably the longest chain.

Another view further up the valley towards higher mountains. Hard to access some of them.

Just a bonus view of nice trees and stuff.

OMG!

By now I had passed over a peak with a few people on it, and was now on a lonely trail between peaks. It was quite flat most of the time.

Over the other side of the ridge, nice and colorful.

I heard people.

Here is the emergency shelter. Todays hike had many paths that joined the ridge line from different starting points. This hut is the top of the most popular starting point, my hike was significantly longer, of course.

Summit! It is not that high, but due to going up and down a few times I somehow managed to do 1500m of climbing. More than Mount Zao, almost as much as Mount Bandai.

There were a few other people on the summit. They had mostly come from the lake. I think I was doing this sort of backwards, the first pic today was the bus, most people get off the train and sprint to the bus, get to the lake, then start their hike. I decided to end at the lake to avoid the rush.

Here is the view. Not a great view, but not bad.

And this of course, my huge head, always a feature. Thats a tree behind my head that looks like an awesome hair failure.

Here is Fuji. This is the one view you will get of it all day, so make the most of it. Looks like there is no snow on it currently.

Starting my descent, is that a lake I see before me?

That does not look very steep, but its REALLY steep.

Here is some more steepness. The leaves made the footing very tricky. At times it was choose your own adventure.

The descent was very colorful, and until I got very close to the dam, I only saw one other person. I thought it would be more popular on a Saturday.

Bonus color, and many many leaves.

Rock and color. Clearly I am running out of things to say. I was starting to worry I would not get a view of the lake.

THERE IT IS! Lake Okutama. Looking quite dirty.

And there is the dam. More on the dam when I get down. Still an hour to go to get back to the dam.

It was a surprisingly long way down, with some bonus ropes to hang on to.

Nearly there.

There is the dam. There were people up here at this little lookout.

View from the dam back up the valley. Great weather all day today.

Another view of the dam and the brown dam water.

And the far side of the dam. Its a hydroelectric plant, a long way down.

I had literally, just enough time to run around to a point where I would not be staring into the sun to take this shot, then I saw the bus, and sprinted, and made it on by seconds! Another great hike. Long. I wont be going very far tonight. Only 2 more hikes!

This is the strangest Don Quijote I have seen. Donki is like Daiso but things cost more than $2.80. For whatever unknown reason, this one exists across a few parking lots.

The alleyways to the main part of Koreatown are very authentic, most shops are selling face masks (make up not tear gas) and nothing else.

Here is the main street. The shots dont really make it look busy, I guess I timed my standing in the middle of the road with everyone behind me to make it look less busy. It was busy. Busy.

Bonus shot of Koreatown in the other direction. I think it has grown considerably in the last 10 years.

I should have stayed in this hotel. So many colors.

Apparently this circus is free. I doubt it.

Sure I went to Koreatown, but all the Korean places were fried cheese coated chicken and had huge lines. So instead I had Sichuanese Japanese food in Koreanese. I really wanted something hot and spicy, and dan dan ramen is my new favourite thing.

The light and weather was amazing today, perfect for garden photos, so I took a lot of them. Most of them will feature the massive GOTHAMIC DoCoMo tower.

Lots of wide open spaces, it looks mostly like there were hardly any people, but thats because wherever I go, people flee in terror.

More open space and Batman land building.

There is a hot house, it was already hot outside, I should have been wearing shorts. The hot house was sweat inducing. Nice lillipads though. Lillie pads? Lilypads? Lily pads? Lillypads? Who knows.

Have some more of something pads.

Hot house and roof. Now back to the garden.

I thought I might find some turtles in these ponds. I did not. Also many parts of the garden are still closed due to the recent Typhoon. They are worried trees might still fall over.

No people.

Reflections.

The other way. So much more colorful than when I came here on a grey day in March.

Some more of the mobile phone tower.

I like these trees a lot.

Nearly finished.

Heres another word I need to look up to be able to spell, Chrysanthemum. These are the winners. The official season ends today I think.

Last one. The flowers in the lawn on this photo are very bright, and confuse the white balance on my camera.

Every trip I have to take a photo of piles of rubbish. And at this juncture I will mention that when walking through Kabukicho this morning, everywhere smelt of urine, and then I saw a guy and a girl urinating together in broad daylight in the middle of the street in front of guys cleaning the streets.

Apple store Japan has a permanent line to spend $1500+ on a phone.

The closed streets of Shinjuku. Be careful here! Cars like to race up the closed streets for attention.

I never noticed the 'church' on top of this building before.

Here is my future $4000 purchase. If I could walk into a store and buy one, I probably would. But I cannot, there seems to be a year long waiting list, so I am safe.

OK, one more of the mobile phone tower, last one I promise.

Final pic of the day, Shinjuku as seen from the station overpass. Nice weather! I wonder if it will remain nice for hiking tomorrow?

Here is the Uniqlo Borg cube. Assimilation is imminent. I refuse to right the actual thing.

Street crossing time. Watch out for the environmentally catastrophic trucks and buses that drive around advertising pop stars. You hear about how Japan sorts their garbage, but you dont hear about how they drive thousands of advertising heavy vehicles around blasting music and flashing lights at people.

Under the freeway overpass, a food park / food truck / hawker stand has 'popped out'. I thought it might be a good spot for dinner, but it was all expensive tapas size serves. Including a lot of French flys.

I liked the 3d'ness of standing right here.

The rooftop illumination was well lit.

Tiny hamburger patty. I chose Japanese style sauce rather than demiglaze sauce. It involves mushrooms.

Another road crossing on my way back to the hotel. I still have 3 more nights to take Shinjuku neon shots. Need to space it out!

The view from Sasago station. I knew from my previous trip here that there is no convenience store and no vending machine! I bought my supplies the night before.

The local government in this area loves signs for mountain climbers. I remembered that from last time also.

The view up the valley. My train out to here traveled through rain, the forecast said rain would stop in Tokyo by around 10AM, and I assumed it had come from where I was heading. There was actually no sign it had rained in this area at all, just blue sky!

I had to cross the highway over a little bridge. Those peaks are the ones I would be climbing today. I was excited, started running.

The first part of the hike that I was going up the wrong way, followed a logging trail alongside a waterfall. Actually the first couple of hours follow waterfalls as you shall see.

Eventually I left the logging track and started heading up, but would soon be rejoining another waterfall.

The lower parts in valleys were still colorful.

The waterfalls were a great companion. It was also very windy at times, and I got showered in leaves.

Some more leaves.

Annnnd some more.

And heres a bit more waterfall. It was just after here that the trail vanished. It had slid away into the waterfalls. I had to hike up and over very sandy landslidey parts of the mountain. I created a few mini landslides myself.

Eventually I got around the landslides and entered the dead zone, where all the trees look dead. I could not really photograph the sandy bits that had slid away as I had put my camera away and was using my hands to hold onto sand. Holding onto sand is not very effective.

Around the back of the peak quite near the summit was the easiest part of the trail. Loggers had basically created a highway up to the top.

Only the last bit was rocky, but it was a taste of what was to come. Here I am just metres from the summit.

Summit time. Fuji view! Hyperventilate!

A very lonely and windy summit. The wind was very gusty. I was in a rush to get down a bit.

View towards Okutama where I was a couple of days ago.

View back towards Tokyo up the Chuo valley. Smoke haze makes it hard to see, but the low bits of the terrain are all small cities.

Another of Fujisan, more to come! You dont just climb up a mountain to get Fuji views and not go overboard.

HEADSHOT. It was very windy. Why does my face look so fat today? Concerning.

I think I had hiked down a bit by now. Those are some other mountains with snow capped peaks. Not sure which ones but they are on the other side of the sizeable city of Kofu, which I still have never been to. I might stay there on my next trip to Japan.

The way down was confusing. This looks like the trail, but its not. This added about 45 minutes onto my hike, as it was not the trail down, it goes back to join the trail I used to come up. And as I mentioned earlier, a better plan would have been to do that!

Along the mystery trail, there was another Fuji view. I would have liked one later in the day as the snow was blowing off the summit, but I could not get a clear shot through the trees.

I had found the right trail. It was sandy, slidey, very steep. Thats my foot. It still doesnt look steep, but the only way down was to hang onto trees and slide between trees on your bum.

Sometimes the slide down was interrupted by a jagged peak. Theres a strange brown/blue/grey little leafy thing growing on the edges of the cliff here. A bit hard to see unless you open the bigger photo.

Another view up the valley.

Here is the last one of Fuji. It seems to have got a lot of snow on it in the last couple of days. I read reports it was snow free 3 days ago.

I had been going down slowly for hours, but had barely come down at all! Frustrating.

Another view of my foot looking down a rocky cliff this time. It never looks steep. I descended down terrain just like this for well over an hour.

Finally, I was convinced again I was on the right path, because I could see an actual path.

It was very colorful towards the end.

First sign of civilization, a cabin in the woods. I called in for a cup of tea, but there was no one home.

Back at the road! These minivans sit in front of the mountains I had just descended from in the late afternoon sun.

And finally, back at Sasago. It is not an attractive town!

I have taken this photo on previous trips, but because I was just heading to the soup shop and back, thats what you get.

Last year I took a cool shot from this spot at the end of Godzilla street. It was better than this one. There was a guy in a pink jumper sitting in front of me reading his phone. I would link to it but I dont think links in picture links link correctly as it breaks the link.

Here it is, gorgon-rizo-ramen-tomaten-san. Highly recommended. You can find it in the bottom of the cinema complex at the end of Godzilla street.