Showing posts with label 日帰り. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 日帰り. Show all posts

Old Love. A sturdy couple in its golden years. Jiji and Baba Iwa.


Greetings cave crawlers and spelunkers of all ages.  Welcome back for another adventure.  This time our hero-🦸‍♀️ (Mine, too.  I am not much but I'm all I think about.)--like I was saying, our hero ducked over the prefectural lines for a hike in Gunma.  Actually it was up one of Gunma's 100 Famous Mountains--Mt. Mido (御堂山).  Here are the stats and details.


Location:  Gunma Prefecture, Shimonita

Starting and stopping point:  Mt. Mido Trailhead (御堂山登山口)

Peaks bagged: Mt. Mido and Mt. Amemiya 御堂山 雨宮山

Getting there/getting around:  I drove but there is a bus stop here.  You can get more information about the buses at this link.  Shimonita Municipal Bus info  That page is in Japanese but does have a link to automatic translation.

Map:  Yama to Kogen Chizu #21 西上州 妙義山・荒船山

Weather Information: Mt. Arafune's weather (not too far away)

Total Time:  4:18 Break time: 32  Distance:  9.4 km

Elevation:  Lowest: 340m Highest:  879 m Total Ascent: 805   Total Descent: 805 m

Technical considerations/difficulty:  

It's not high but there are a lot of steep parts.  There is quite a bit of climbing up and down through streams.  Slipping and falling are to be avoided like the plague.  Beware of leeches.  I'm glad I had a shaker full of salt with me.  It's a great leech repellant.  

You need to have a good nose for the trail as it isn't always marked so well.  The trail I came down wasn't the greatest.  It is a dotted-line trail (ie, not used much) on the map.  It was slow going because I had to pick my way down the stream.  

Even when the stream ended and the trail joined an "improved" road, the going wasn't any faster as the road has obviously been abandoned for some time and is covered with deadfalls and strewn with rocks.

Facilities:  Nothing.

Thoughts/observations/recommendations:  This was a great hike.  I had planned on doing one of the big boys of Yatsugatake on this day but decided not to because of weather considerations.  Instead, I chose to wait until the afternoon to start and do this shorter hike.  It's a bit out of the way so I didn't meet any other hikers.  That was great.  There weren't wonderful views throughout the hike, but the views there were were spectacular.  Jiji Iwa and Baba Iwa are really great.  I had hoped to get a great view of Mt. Myogi from Mt. Mido but was disappointed to find the view completely blocked by trees.  I was actually surprised to learn that Mido is one of Gunma's 100 Famous Mountains.  I thought the aforementioned rocks (Iwa) were much more interesting than Mt. Mido.  I did get some obstructed views of Mt. Myogi later in the day but none were as clear as I had hoped for.  Mt. Amemiya also had bupkis for views.  I added it on to the day's hike as an afterthought just because I had the time to bag another peak and add a few more miles.

Here are some pictures.




This hike was the day after a typhoon so the streams were high.





This was neat.  There is rope to the right of the falls to climb it.


The rope.



The unfortunate result of walking along and through so much water was leeches.  I am glad I had my trusty shaker full of salt.  I detected the little bloodsuckers early on and only one had attached before I got him to depart by assaulting him with salt. (Her?  How would I know?  I'm not a biologist.)  Even though I got rid of him right away, my ankle was still bleeding 4 hours later when I got home.  Leeches inject you with an anticoagulant and the bleeding will go on for a day or two if you don't keep a bandaid on it.  


Just around the corner from this I encountered the Jiji Iwa and Baba Iwa.  This hike was starting to get cool.


Ta da!

By the way, "Jiji" is a colloquial way of saying "old man" or "granddad."  "Baba" is for "old woman"/Grandma."  "Iwa" means "boulder."

These two are quite a couple, don't you think?



On the way down, more water.


And more water . . .


Almost back to civilization . . .


Thanks for joining me.  This was another great day.  I hope you can have this much fun yourself in your particular cave, whatever it is.

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ps  Almost forgot.  This was my best view of Mt. Myogi all day.


pps Oh, yeah, when I wasn't listening to birds chirping and brooks babbling, this is what I listened to:

Today's listening:  

Bible in a Year  "In The Bible in a Year podcast, Fr. Mike Schmitz walks you through the entire Bible in 365 episodes, providing commentary, reflection, and prayer along the way."   I was listening to stories about Kings David and Solomon.  Very cool. 

Warfare Podcast Episode Last letters of French Resistance Fighters  The Warfare podcast is related to History Hit.  They have a lot of great stuff.  These letters were the farewell letters of resistance fighters before they were executed.


and a ppps...  I saw this from the street on the way home.  It is a cool rock.



Golden Week 100 Meizan, Mt. Tateshina, Nagano




Location:  Mt. Tateshina, Nagano

Starting and stopping points:  Bicycle from Saku City to Ogawahara Pass.  Hiking started and finished there.

Peaks bagged: Maekake 前掛山 Tateshina 蓼科山 Futago 双子山

Getting there/getting around:  I used my bicycle to get to the trailhead via the Tateshina Skyline.  That road is still closed to cars due to snow.  I think it opens in mid-June.  Many people come to Tateshina from the western side where there is a gondola nearby.

Map:  Yama to Kogen Chizu 33 YATSUGA-TAKE TATESHINA・UTSUKUSHIGAHARA・KIRIGAMINE 八ヶ岳蓼科・美ヶ原・霧ヶ峰

Weather Information: Mt. Tateshina weather

Total Time:   10:52 Break time: 1:18  Distance:  bicycle: 51km  hiking 10.3km  

Elevation:  Lowest: 672m Highest: 2530m 

Total ascent/descent 2,466m/2548

Ascent:  bicycle: 1,594m      hiking:    872m

Descent: bicycle: 1682m     hiking:      866m

Technical considerations/difficulty:  It's not a terrifically difficult hike.  Alltrails says that is moderately challenging.  I guess so.  The most taxing part of my day was the bike ride to the trailhead.  That was 25 km riding uphill.  On the hike, there are not many areas with chains or ropes.  There is still quite a bit of snow on the trail.  I probably should have brought my crampons.  I myself am not a fan of walking poles but I saw many people putting theirs to good use descending down the snowy trail.  Much of the hike is above the tree line and the ground surface is boulders or rocks.  Some of the rocks are loose and you really have to watch your footing.

Facilities:  There is parking and a public restroom at the pass but they aren't open for the season yet.  There are a few huts (hutte) on the way.  You can get a meal or some hiking stuff on the way.  There is a campground by the Futago Ponds (双子池).

Thoughts/observations/recommendations:  Wow.  What a great start to Golden Week for 2023.  I really enjoyed this trip.

I think I want to come back here in the winter some year.  There is such a great 360 degree panorama.  All the Alps are visible, as well as other prominent mountains.  I really would like to see that on a crystal clear day.

Here are some pictures:

The bike rides


The hike


I live in Saku City, Nagano.  I can see 3 of the 100 Famous Mountains from home; one of them is Mt. Tateshina.  For my first assault on Tateshina, I decided to take my bicycle to the trailhead on the Tateshina Skyline.  During Golden Week, there is a hot air balloon festival here in Saku and I was treated to views of the balloons from the moment I stepped out of my house.

Very cool!



Saku Balloon Festival

The Tateshina Skyline is a really beautiful mountain road.  I didn't see more than a handful of cars.  There are a few farms along the way and many cottages/summer homes.



It is a loooong, unrelenting uphill slope, though.  On flat ground, this ride would take me about 90 minutes.  This took me nearly four hours.

Tateshina Skyline 蓼科スカイライン

This was ominous.  It says "road closed ahead."  I didn't see anything about road closures in my research!  I decided to press on and just see what would happen.


The truth is out there.


What is this place, the Japanese Area 51?


No, it's nothing like that.  That dish is a deep-space research facility called JAXA.  JAXA

The road was open to cars just to there.  Beyond that, they haven't opened up the Tateshina Skyline because all the snow hasn't melted yet.  (99% of it has.  I was fine on the bicycle.)

By the time I reached the deserted parking lot at the Ogawahara Pass, my legs were like rubber.  I seriously questioned whether I could hike after that.  Actually, the hike was almost less taxing.

There was more snow on the trail than I'd anticipated.  



This was my first glimpse of Tateshina from the trail.


This is the Ogawahara Hut (大河原ヒュッテ).  Several trails intersect here and the trail from here to the top got a bit crowded.  Until this point I had only seen one or two people.









This hut (and the facility at Futago Ike) is linked here.
蓼科山頂ヒュッテ Mt. Tateshina Hut




Mt. Arafune from Tateshina 蓼科山頂から荒船山







The top

蓼科山頂 Top of Mt. Tateshina







I live in that valley.













I am a big fan of pictures like this.  I just learned that there is a Japanese word, "komorebi" that means "sunlight filtering through lush, thick leaves."  I love komorebi.




There are two small ponds side by side which are called 双子池 (Futago Ike)--that means Twin Ponds.  There are campsites by the lake and a hut nearby.  Futago ike mountain cabin 双子池ヒュッテ

双子池1 Futago Pond 1



The smaller of the two ponds.
Futago Pond 2 双子池2

Did I mention that I like komorebi?


I took this shot of Tateshina from Mt. Futago just before descending down to my bicycle.



From there, it was all downhill.  Quite literally.  According to my app, I burned 931 calories on the bike ride home.  I doubt that very much.  Gravity did all the work.

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