Mostly Japanese Mountains: Caveman climbs another of the 100 Famous Mountains. Lake Miyagase to Mt. Tanzawa.

If there's anything in the world I hate, it's leeches. Filthy little devils. Charlie Allnut

I'm with Mr. Bogart on this one.

Greeting cave critters.

I went to Kanagawa yesterday to take a different trail up to Mt. Tanzawa. It was a really great day--except for the leeches.

That was the least gross picture I got of leeches yesterday. If you want to see some more gruesome ones, let me know. I try to concentrate on beautiful stuff on this blog so I thought it better to spare you the icky stuff.

One of the irritating things about leeches is that they inject an anticoagulant into the wound so that the blood will just keep pouring out for hours if you don't stop it.

I've been up Mt. Tanzawa 3 or 4 times. It's a nice area to hike in. The views from the top are ok, but the views on the way up tend to be even better. Although it was a beautiful day yesterday, the top was surrounded by mist and clouds and I didn't take any pictures up there.

On this trek, I assaulted the mountain from the east, a trail I'd yet to tread. It was a fairly steady climb. I started at an elevation of around 300 meters and Tanzawa is 1,567. I realized later that the distance of this hike was greater than the hike I did up Fuji last week. And, taking into consideration the up and down nature of this hike, the change in elevation also was greater on this hike.

Hike from Lake Miyagase to Mt. Tanzawa map

Shrooms!

This little guy was no bigger than a quarter.

I started by Lake Miyagase, a sight I'd yet to see. It's a nice-looking lake. It seems quite popular with bicycles and motorcycles. It turns out that that was the most photogenic part of the journey.