Nokogiriyama

Hi all,
We are going hiking on Nokogiri-yama in Chiba Prefecture. The hike itself is 2.5 hours long. The elevation gain is about 300 meters. This should be easy to easy-moderate. The current plan is to start hiking from Hamakanaya JR station to Nokogiri-yama to Hoda JR station. If we have a lot of time left after the hike, we could go to a beach, too.

For transportation, we have two choices, trains or rental cars.

By train from Arakawaoki, it takes about 3.5 hours to get there. It costs 4660 yen for a round trip at a normal rate but only 2700 yen if you buy a JR Holiday Pass. The route is as follows.

Arakawaoki - (Jyoban JR Line) - Kashiwa - (Tobu Noda Line) - Funabashi - (Sobu JR Line) - Chiba - (Uchibo JR Line) - Hamakanaya

Tobu is not a JR line. You cannot use a JR pass. The prices above include Tobu tickets.

If we want to rent a car(s), we need to make necessary arrangements sooner.

This was a very surprising, and enjoyable, day out for the group doing the longer of the two walks. I had not expected to encounter such difficult terrain in Chiba. At the end of the day, I was more tired than I had been after climbing the much higher Shirane-san two weeks previously. The dense trees also made navigation very difficult, and we soon found ourselves lost, unsure if we were still on the path. After climbing up onto a ridge, walking along it for one or two hours, and thinking we should throw away our compasses, we eventually came to a road, unmarked on the map which was only 7 years old. Amazingly, it took us to the steps up to the top of Nokogiriyama. The area is designated by Chiba prefecture as an area of extraordinary beauty, and was
certainly a surprise to all of us (as was the 600 Yen charge after being lost in `jungle' a few hours previously). The temple is very interesting with its 30 metre Bhudda, ranked as one of the greatest images of its kind in Japan, and 1,500 stone figures placed among the rocks. Well worth a visit. Standing on the top, we had a magnificent view, but still couldn't work out which ridge we had walked along. To complete a very varied day, we took the ropeway back down to the bottom.