Golden Week on Kobushigatake

 

Hello cave dwellers.  Leave your club at the door and pull a rock up to the fire.  Let me share some cave drawings with you.  

I took an overnight trip to Kobushigatake on Tuesday and Wednesday.  It was my 3rd time on that mountain.  I have on the trails to its south, west and north.  This trip was because I wanted to take the trail to the east so as to bag Mts. Happu and Karisakarei.

Kobushigatake is a great mountain!  Some of my favorite pictures have come from my treks around it.

Even though the tenting area at the Kobushi Goya (hut/lodge) was full, it didn't seem crowded.  Everyone is so considerate about noise and not getting in each other's way.  I generally like people that hike anyway.  I find a lot of kindred spirits on a mountain like Kobushi.

This is the lodge itself.  It's only open from late spring until early winter.  Indeed, there was enough snow around that many hikers were wearing crampons in the area.  I left mine at home and regretted it.  I took a look at the koya's blog just now and saw that it had snowed last night and covered the tenting area.  

https://kobu2475.exblog.jp/

Reservations, etc. can be found here https://secure.kobushigoya.net/.

This is some swag I bought at the goya on my first trip up.  This is called 手拭 ("te" new" "goo" "ee"), which means hand towel.  At the bottom of the hand towel, you can see some stamps.  They have some cool rubber stamps in the lodge.  I always make sure I put a stamp on this towel and on whatever book I've brought with me to pass the time overnight.

The people that run the Kobushi goya are so nice.  When the master of the lodge heard that this was my third visit, he presented me with this bandana.  Thanks!

Even though visibility wasn't the greatest on this trip, the mountains never cease to dazzle me.

One thing I noticed on the way down was the smell of deer.  If you have followed this blog, you know that I rescued some antlers off a deer carcass a few months back.  In order to clean the stubs up, since they had some flesh still attached, I boiled them.  The other day when I was descending from Karisakarei, I realized that I recognized a strong scent that I first encountered when boiling those antlers.  Pretty cool.

Caught a glimpse of this guy (fox) crossing the street near the Mitomi Michi no Eki.  I am lucky I got this snap.  He was a good 100 yards away.  If he had not stopped and looked both ways, I wouldn't have gotten my phone out in time.

That's all for a while.  I have some stuff to take care of next week and won't be in the mountains again for at least two weeks.  Take care.  Make sure to leave your email address to stay posted.