Mitake to Mt. Mitake and Mt. Odake

Start: Mitake (300m)

Peak: Odake (1300m)

End: Mitake.

Refreshments: Mt. Mitake (900m)

Total distance: 20km

The hike begins from Mitake station; there is a river, where people do rafting, and some shops where you can equip with food. There is no running water available that I could see.

The main route to Mt. Mitake is on a paved road. This has a grade about 15%, and is runnable most of the time, though it was quite warm.  Going up is easy enough, but going down is a bit of a pain.

 

After an hour or so, you reach a village with a large temple, where there is running water.  I used that to refresh my supplies. On the way down, I also got an extra snack from one of the shops.

As you can see, it was pretty cloudy; but the forest cover meant that little could be seen anyway.

There are plenty of intermediate peaks to visit if you wish. However, most of them lack a view.

The view from the top is unremarkable. Nevertheless, the climb is interesting as it has a few rocks and stuff to scramble over.

Overall, this took a bit longer than I expected; I was thinking I'd be able to run most of it, but I had to walk in many stretches. The terrain alternated from almost flat to quite steep, after the paved roads ended, while other parts had too many obstacles to traverse quickly. Nevertheless, I met a group of runners and joined them for a while in one of the less technical bits. Overall, it was a good day out.

Mt. Takanosu ( 鷹ノ巣山 )

Start: Okutama, 350m
End: Mt. Takanosu, 1750m
Duration: 5 hours (fast hike / run)
Distance: 24km (both ways, with some excursions)
Difficulty: Easy, but long (from Okutama). The mud tends to be very slippery.
Access: There's a two hour-long 'holiday express' training for Okutama; it was totally full when I got in.
Trailhead: Multiple options, the longest of which is Okutama. There is good bus access to two other heads, one at the lake (south side of mountain) and one near some caves (north side).

Mt. Takanosu, in the clouds

The strange thing about most hikes around Tokyo is that you can just go there by metro. It's a long metro though.

On the way to Okutama

Getting to Okutama is not hard - there is a direct train, passing from most central Tokyo stations, including Tokyo, and Shinjuku. However, the train I took around 8:00 was very crowded and I could only sit towards the end, when most people had disembarked for other destinations (Okutama is the last stop). And I had been wanting to do my Japanese exercises.. anyway. On the way back I actually found a seat, but I left at 15:25 which is early.

First part of the trail

Getting to the mountain top is easy - there are many paths, but I took the longest one, as I wanted to run as much as possible. My Japanese books and 2l of water made this a bit tough. The road was initially moderately steep. In the beginning I met a fellow runner who was tackling the much tougher Kumotori mountain (at 2100m and another 10km further, so that would make it a ~2000m mountain marathon). He seemed to be struggling, which was surprising, given his goal. But then he left me behind in the steeper parts. In retrospect, I shouldn't have done so many deadlifts this week.

A small shrine

Most of the path was in deeply shaded forest, not that it made much difference, as it became very cloudy after a couple of hours. So, no views to Fuji for me.

Mt. Mutsuishi

 This is my first encounter with a small-scale picnic at the top of a mountain. It seems to be popular to do quite serious picnics in Japan. Anyway, this finished the steeper part of the trail. After Mutsuishi, the way becomes considerably flatter until you reach the area around Takanosu.  This is about 5km, and can be done easily in 30min.

Some blossoms

Mt. Takanosu, in the mist

Panorama from Takanosu-san

These trees are really tall

Small shrine

Back in Okutama

Okutama is a town build over a gorge. If you have the time, or use another trailhead, you can visit the nearby lake or some caves. I didn't do that. I ordered some yakodon and beer, which I wolfed down in 10 minutes to catch the train back!