Kirigamine and Tateshina walks

Kirigamine and Tateshina
Kirigamine highland has many flowers in summer. Especially Nikkokisuge (Day lily) is famous in this area. The best time to view its blossoms is the middle of July. Hope we can see beautiful sceneries.
And we move to Tateshina highland which is nearby Kirigamine by car on the second day. We will start from the 7th
station and walk up to the top. You will enjoy the panoramic view of Yatsugatake and Japanese Alps on the top if the
weather is good.
These walks are not so difficult.

July 14 (Sat) Kirigamine
5:15 meeting at 7/11 or Tsukuba station
5:30 get on Joban highway from Sakura-Tsuchiura

Yashima marsh(1,620m) - Hutte Misayama - Kurumayamakata(1,820m) - Kurumayama summit(1,925m) - Chochomiyama(1,836m) - Monomiiwa(1,770m) - Okukirinokoya - Hutte Misayama(1,620m)

Start from Yashima marsh (八島湿原) around 10:00am. We are going to stop by "Hutte Misayama" which we stay for the night and leave what we don't need to carry for the walk. It is 30minutes walk from the car parking.

July 15th (Sun) Tateshina-yama
Move to Tateshina-yama by car.
Hutte Misayama - Yashima Car parking -(by car)- 7th station of Tateshina-yama (1,850m)- summit (2,530m) - 7th station

• Approximate expenses -
  Petro + Highway: 5,000yen
  Hutte Misayama: 4,000yen for tatami room/person (meals are not included)
  5,000yen for bed room/person (meals are not included)
  http://park19.wakwak.com/~misayama/html/stay2.html
  If you would like to order;
  Dinner: 1,200yen
  Breakfast(toast and coffee): 500yen
  http://park19.wakwak.com/~misayama/html/stay5.html
  you can also use their kitchen if you like.
  http://park19.wakwak.com/~misayama/html/stay3.html
  Club fee: 1,000yen

• What to bring -
  good hiking boots
  rain gear
  lunch and drinks for two days
  (You can buy at the hut as well)
  extra foods
  towels
  onsen kit
  We might go to hot springs on the way back to Tsukuba.
  Don't use your own shampoo, conditioner nor body soap at Hutte Misayama. You can use theirs.

We came back from the walks safely on Sunday night. Weather was not so great for two days but was kind of nice.

On the first day, we left Tsukuba around 5:20am but there was already some traffic jams around Tokyo. We arrived
Kirigamine around 11:00am. We walked to the hut about 20min, left our heavy stuffs, had lunch and started walk around 12:00. The flower Nikkokisuge was blooming only 10-20%. It will probably bloom more in a week or 10days. And it was foggy when we got to the top of Kurumayama, so we couldn't see any mountains from there... But anyway the walk was relaxing and peaceful. We arrived at the hut again around 5:30pm and had good dinner. The atmosphere of the hut was very good. We enjoyed playing guitar and piano and also listening to them. Next day, it was raining in the morning. So we didn't go to watch sunrise. We had breakfast around 7:30am. After that, one of the stuffs of the hut told us a story of Misayama（御射山）which we spent night. We knew that we were staying in a holy place :-) We visited the ex-shrine nearby Hutte Misayama before leaving there. Then we got back to the car parking and headed to Tateshina yama. It stopped raining until we got there. We decided to walk up to the top from the 7th station as we planned. It was almost noon. The mountain was mossy and nice.
The path was quite steep and last parts were rocky. I enjoyed it. And also it was foggy when we got to the top, so we
couldn't see any mountains again. But somehow it was very nice being on the top ;-) It took about 2 hours to the top.
Going down was much easier and faster. We were back to the 7th station around 5:00pm. We stopped by Lake Megami and a farm a little bit on the way back to Tsukuba and got on a highway from Saku IC. We had dinner "Kamameshi" at Yokokawa SA and brought the bowl back as a souvenir. There was almost no traffic jam on the way back. We avoided to drive through Tokyo this time and arrived at Tsukuba around 10:00pm. It was comfortable drive.