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.