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
**Please note that the publisher makes updated maps every year and therefore this link might become obsolete. If you copy and paste the Japanese characters into Shobunsha's Mapple Siteyou should be able to find the latest version.
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!
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.
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.
The top
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
The smaller of the two ponds.
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.
Before I begin, let me just say that Mrs. Caveman is the best wife in the world. Today's post comes to you because of her generosity. She gave me the dough to take the train for this past trip and it was greatly appreciated!
Yesterday, I climbed another one of the 100 Famous Mountains. Mt. Nasu is in Nasu (city), Tochigi (prefecture). Nasu is at the extreme northern part of the Kanto Plain, bordering the Tohoku ("East"-"North") region of Japan. Actually, I entered Tohoku on this hike because I stepped over the prefectural boundary into Fukushima for just a bit.
One reason that I put off this trip for so long is that it was difficult for me to balance the expense in time and money for the travel against the amount of time in the mountains. Taking the local trains up and back can be done much more cheaply than taking the shinkansen. But that would take so long as to make overnighting a necessity. Also, the actual hike up and back from the top of Mt. Nasu can be done in just over an hour. When Mrs. Caveman asked me what I wanted for our anniversary, I asked if I could take a shinkansen ride. She said yes. She is the vest! (That means very best. I just coined that word. Feel free to use it yourself.)
So, I took the shinkansen and added several mountains to the suggested itinerary and had a great daytrip.
Here are the details. I'll add pictures and commentary later.
Getting there/getting around: I took the shinkansen to Nasushiobara. From there, there are buses to the Nasu Ropeway and all the onsens and other tourist attractions on the way. One-way bus tickets to the ropeway costs about ¥1,300. A two-day free pass costs ¥2,600. The Ropeway is a separate expense. See here for business hours and prices Nasu Ropeway .
Map: Yama to Kogen Chizu # . . . Beats me. I just printed a map off the internet (YAMAP) this time.
Time and Distance: 6 hours, 15 minutes plus a break for lunch 16.16km (Just shy of 10 miles)
Elevation: Lowest: 1,200m Highest: 1,915m Total Ascent: 1,498m Total Descent: 1,039m
Technical considerations/difficulty: There are some steep spots, but most of this area is actually pretty easy. There are not a lot of chains or ropes and the trail is very well-maintained while still keeping a very natural feel. There are large areas of bamboo grass and I especially appreciated that they had trimmed the trail. Bamboo grass is nice to look at but it is really annoying if you have to wade through it.
Facilities: Not a lot. Once you are on the trail, you won't encounter any restrooms or commercial entities. There is one waterhole on a spur that I took but that water was un-drinkable--unless maybe one was dying of thirst. 😉 That would make it ok.
Thoughts/observations/recommendations: Boy, what a great area to hike. It's been on my list for quite a while. I am so glad I finally did it. It exceeded my hopes.
OK. Here are my reflections looking back on the day. I will start with the journey up from Tokyo . . .
This was something neat to come upon when pulling into one particular station on the way up. I think this might have been in Oyama.
Rather than start at the ropeway, I opted to start at a bus stop a few miles away and take a roundabout route up to the mountain. For the first few hours, my hike was a very solitary pleasant excursion. One of the first sights I encountered was these falls.
Komadome Falls
The Yosasa River
The Kita Onsen (Hotspring) is next to the river.
It was just such a picture-perfect, pleasant day. The temperature was around 8~9 C (50ish in Fahrenheit) for most of the day.
The first landmark I got to was the top of the ski area, Mount Jeans. I've been skiing there many times in the past but this was my first time up there without snow--or people.
I am glad I brought water with me. This was the only waterhole and the water was crunchy. 😱
There is a video if you want to see how it operates.
This is totally natural but it looks like something that was arranged for a zen garden.
From Mt. Jeans, I headed up to Mt. Mae (Maetake). That was really not much to see. Then I headed up to Sanbonyaritake ("Three" "Spear" "Peak") and had lunch. That's where I first started to encounter people.
This is the only time that visibility got bad. That was unfortunate because you are supposed to be able to see Mt. Bandai in Fukushima from here. I like that mountain and would have liked to have gotten a glimpse of it from afar.
On Sanbonyaritake. This disc is oriented so that north is up and south is down. It shows all the mountains you should be able to see from that point.
This spot is just below Mt. Asahi's peak. It's cool. Check out the video to get an idea on how windy it is.
The top of Mt. Asahi
The top of Nasudake
No trip is complete without a memento. I was fortunate enough to take a digger into the gravel on the way down. These little scars 🩹will give me happy memories until they heal. 🙂
That's all for now. Don't forget to subscribe. All the cool kids are doing it.
Addendum:
Here at work today I took a look to the north with my Peakfinder app and was astonished to find that Sanbonyaritake, one of the mountains on the other day's hike, is in the line of sight from here. That's 174km away! It's obscured by clouds in this picture, unfortunately. Just knowing it is there made it a little hard to concentrate at work. 😜
Mts Nantai (男体) and Shirane (白根) are very visible in the picture. Those are 124km away in Nikko.
Want to check out one of the other 100 Famous Mountains in Tochigi?
