Daigo Hike

The route intended is Saigane station --> Mount Nantai (654 m) --> TsukioreSan --> Fukuroda no taki --> Fukuroda Station. Basically more or less following this: http://www.yamareco.com/modules/yamareco/detail-150170.html , hopefully in time for the best show of autumn colors along the trail.

The map time is around 7 hours.

Details:

Tsukuba Centre --> Tsuchiura station (7:27 -->7:59) Bus

Tsuchiura --> Mito --> Saigane (8:11 --> 10:21) Train

Fukuroda -->Mito --> Tsuchiura (17:53 --> 20:04) Train

Tsuchiura --> Tsukuba Cebtre (20:10-->20:35) Bus

Trains are quite infrequent along the Suigun line after Mito; which means it would be a strict time bound hike possibly left with no time for onsen.

Great weather, mystical and beautiful nature, vivid autumn colours, great company and some real adventure sums up this hike.

Reschedule, rain predictions, etc meant the group size was reduced to four: Andreas, Kostya, Maiko and Deepa. 3 of us took the 7:17 bus from Tsukuba centre and we met Andreas at Tsuchiura. On board the Joban line train to Mito we started the route plan discussion. It did came as a real surprise to me when an unanimous decision was taken for the longer hike route of map time 7 hours all the way from Saigane --> Nantai --> Tsukiore --> Fukuroda falls --> Fukuroda. We boarded the Suigun line and got down at Saigane Station to start our long hike of the day.

At 10:50 am, we started the hike from Saigane station greeted by a brief rain shower (drizzle). The rain didn't bother us again except for another brief shower during lunch break on the way to Nantai. After an hour of walk along the countryside we reached the trail head along the forest with brown autumn carpet. The real adventure began as we crossed a tunnel and climbed a bridge to start towards Nantai. The trail is more or less ridge walk and chains along the trail for major part of the trail till the top of Nantai. Rain and autumn carpet on the ground made it the best challenge to climb but with amazing view (perfect weather after the rains). At around 2:00pm we were on top of Nantai which was among the 100 best viewpoint in Ibaraki.

Next we set off to the next leg of hike another 2-3 hours of hike towards Nabetenyama. By then sun had started to show up and it was a nice autumn walk. By 3:30 pm we were feeling the strain of the long walk (I started realising I had underestimated the difficulty of the route) and only by then it had begun to dawn upon the us that we have in front of us 'walk in the dark' all the way till Fukuroda Falls. By 4:00pm sun had set and we were dragging ourselves towards Nabetenyama with headlights on. At Nabetenyama it was clear that it is a wise idea to wrap up hike soon. Walking with the headlights on in the dark along the forested trail with autumn carpet on the ground is indeed an adventure. It was basically 'hunt for the red ribbons' to find the trail in the dark. So having decided not to hike upto Tsukiore or Fukuroda no taki, we decided to head back to Fukuroda station from the next forking point.

As we forked onto another 20 minutes hike that would take us to the road that leads to Fukuroda station, there was a moment when my phone gps was showing we were heading wrong way and trail path was not clear. Thoughts of getting lost in the woods, rescue started popping up in my mind. Only to realise it was a winding path, we were back on track. All along this hike we had met only one person which was atop Nantai There was no other trace of human presence except us. 20 minutes along this trail would mean we would be back to the civilization. However, a couple of steps further in the woods we saw headlights and heard voices, which indeed came as a surprising encounter. It happened to be a rescue team at work trying to rescue two hikers who had hurt themselves after slipping off the steep slope. They were part of hiking team of elderly people who had done the same route as us (We had not met the group on the way so they had obviously started quite early than us). Rescue team warned us not to go ahead with this shortcut and even if we wanted to we had to wait till the rescue team had lifted the injured up the slope.

We were knackered by this point. Not going down this trail means having to climb up again and to do the long detour of another 1 hour or so to reach the road. The rescue operation was going really slow in the dark, and we realised that we cannot afford to wait in the dark indecisive of which trail to take. By this time, rest of the group of the elderly people had started climbing up the path to take the long detour. We decided to follow then back up the route we came. At the forking point, the group gathered and decided to wait for the injured. They showed us the intended trail on the map and then 4 of us set off on the long path back to civilization. The initial path seemed okie in the dark and we came across the signpost '水根' tunnel. As we headed along we could actually see light of the vehicles at a distance (literally light at the end of the tunnel). However we missed the trail and were facing a steep slope, only to be pointed out by Kostya that the trail is a couple of steps above the point where we were. As we started walking towards the light we realised that it the rest of the rescue team with the medics waiting for the injured hikers. Maiko San took the lead and explained the rescue personels that we were not the group that had called for rescue . The rescue team guided us to complete the last bit of the slope towards the road where ambulance and other vehicles were parked. It was around 6:00 pm when we arrived there. Oh boy we were so relieved and glad the saga had a happy ending.

Going to the Fukuroda station from that point would mean, more than an hour of hike. We decided to ask the rescue team for taxi number. However, they offered us to call for a taxi to take us to Fukuroda station. But we were not done yet. 4 of us seemed a bit reluctant to call it a day yet. Taxi came in less than 10 minutes. We decided a photo stopover at Fukuroda Falls before heading to Fukuroda Station to catch the 19:09 train to Mito. It was only a ten minute ride to the Falls, but as we headed towards the entrance of the falls, it was obvious we indeed wanted to spend some time at the falls; just gazing at the illuminated waterfalls and walking along the illuminated bridge. The taxi meter was on wait mode as we headed back from the falls by around 19:10. The next and last train was at 20:30. So we had a little more time in hand, given the option of dinner or onsen, we decided to choose onsen although all four of us were literally starving. We asked the taxi driver to drop us off at the onsen near the station. Yeah the adventure needs a finishing touch. A long hike without onsen visit is just not done!! At 19:30 pm we reached the onsen. The station was 20 minutes walk from the onsen which meant we had just 30 minutes (indeed short time) at the onsen. As the guys went for the bath, we girls decided to take a short snack break with konjac at the onsen shop before heading to the onsen. We took the 20:30 train and were back in Tsukuba after catching taxi from Tsuchiura station by around 11:30pm.

Long story short, it was one amazing hiking adventure (on a hindsight, not a best decision to do long 7 hours hike during autumn with a late start, but all is well that ends well). Thanks indeed to Kostya, Maiko and Andreas for joining in and awesome company. We were indeed very lucky with the weather.

Cost: We ended up spending around 2000 yen per person more than I had previously mentioned about the cost.