Okutama

Thanks to everyone who joined the Okutama hike! It was a bit confusing, with many people joining and dropping out right until the last minute, but eventually about 17 of us boarded the train at Shinjuku. Along with the rest of Tokyo, it seemed (clearly, the perfect weather and autumn colours were attracting many people to leave the comfort of Sunday morning lie-in).

Unfortunately, having got on what we thought was the front of the train headed for Okutama, we found it was actually the back of the train headed goodness-knows-who-where, so we had to abandon our seats and squeeze onto the already crowded front carriages.

Twelve of us got of at Hinatawada to do the easy hike, while the "difficult" walkers stayed on. The weather was sunny and warm, and Hinatawada itself was surprisingly beautiful, with a glorious view of autumn colours as we crossed a gorge to find the mountain trail. Despite a somewhat misleading map, we eventually found the entrance to the shrine at the start of the walk, and left the mundane world behind. The ridge walk to Hinode Yama followed a very easy, pleasant wooded trail, with tantalizing glimpses of the promised views through the trees. We came across one or two other hikers, and a mountain bike, but otherwise we had the lovely peaceful surroundings to ourselves. It was a bit of a shock, then, to arrive at the summit of Hinode Yama to find it already packed with hikers enjoying the lovely all-round views and cooking their lunches on gas stoves! Most of them had just walked over from the cable car station on nearby Mitake... We managed to squeeze a little space for ourselves to relax and have lunch and enjoy the views over the Tanzawa mountains and the Tokyo metropolis. Fuji-san, as usual, was being coy but still the views were great.

After a while, though, one particularly large group started a sing-song and we decided it was time to head for Mitake san. We already sensed that Mitake san was a pretty popular place as we met so many people on the way. But we were still surprised to be greeted by a goat in an old farmhouse. Mitake is really quite a large village, complete with thatched minka-style houses, hotels, omiyage shops, cable car and, of course, the impressive shrine on the summit. This was where we were supposed to meet up with the other group, but since their phones were still out of range, daylight time was limited, and we were still full of energy, we decided to go ahead and walk down to Kori.

This walk was maybe the nicest of the day. Having found our way through the maze of streets on Mitake to the beginning of the trail, we were greeted with some stunning mountain scenery and autumn colours. It was difficult to believe we were still in the Tokyo metropolitan area! Daylight was already failing as we started the steep descent through the woods, but everyone made it down before dark.

Some decided to go straight back to Tsukuba, and the rest of us had thought of going to Okutama for an onsen, but as we finally made contact with the other group, who had just arrived via cable car from the summit of Mitake to the station, we decided to change our plans and go there instead. There don't seem to be any public onsens in Mitake, but we did find one ryokan with a public bath. Unfortunately it could only accommodate 5 people at a time (well, a little optimistic), so the girls went first while the guys drank some beer and waited for their turn. By the time everyone had taken a bath, we decided it was a bit late to go for dinner (and we'd already enjoyed some tsumami with the beer), so everyone headed straight for home. All in all, it was a very pleasant day, with fantastic weather, easy walking, and great company. Thanks to all for joining.