Mt Sekiro, 2 years later

 Welcome cavedwellers.

Two years ago, I took my bicycle for one of the three aborted attempts I've made to go the 50-odd miles to Lake Yamanaka for a close-up look at Mt Fuji.  Each time, I've had to give up because of road closures in the mountains.

On this particular trip, I came across Mt Sekiro for the first time on my way home.  Since I had to give up on my bike ride, I thought about hiking this mountain but I discovered that the trails were closed because of the typhoon that had just passed through the day before.  This was in October 2019.  That particular typhoon really devastated the trail system and we still haven't caught up.  Coming in the fall as it had, there wasn't time to repair everything that was wiped out before the winter came.  And before that winter was up, Coronavirus came and all the repairs got put on hold. 

I've taken a peek at Mt. Sekiro several times in the more than a year and a half that's passed since it first popped up on my radar.  Finally, I have found an open trail!  

Here we go . . . 

This is near where I started.  This kind of random creativity is one of the reasons I love Japan.

The ferris wheel is at the Pleasure Forest.  (I really like ferris wheels like this.)

Can you spot the wildlife?  If you can't, you might be in trouble.

If you couldn't see it in the picture, maybe a video will help.

That wasn't the only wildlife I encountered today.  Something, I assume it was a leech, got into my sock and opened a wound that bled for a few hours.  I didn't feel anything.  The only reason I realized I was bleeding was I just happened to stick my finger in my boot to dig out a pebble and found my finger to be covered in red juice when I pulled it out.  I thought it must have been a berry or something that got into my shoe.  When I got home and pulled off my sock, I discovered a tiny wound that was still bleeding.  I mean really bleeding fast.  Blood was pouring out fasting than I could wipe/wash it away.  Applying a bit of cayenne pepper put an end to the hemorrhaging.   I didn't find the critter that did it, but I assume it was a leech.  I hope it wasn't anything venomous. 

That's Lake Sagami down below.  You can see the highway, route 20 and the Chuo train line on the other side of it.  Tokyo, the mountainous part of it at least, is just beyond the first ridge behind them.  As always, I really like looking at places I've been to before.  I've been up and down route 20 on my bicycle many times and have climbed all those mountains in the distance.

Mt. Sekiro is a walk of just a few hours.  It's not a lot of hard work.  I couldn't see it because of clouds today but you can see Fuji from the top.  Other than that, the views weren't particularly great.  It's a nice trail, though.