By car from Tokyo: Take the Shuto Expressway to the Chuo Expressway and exit at the Suwa I.C. Then follow the signs to the Venus Line roadway and take that from Kirigamine. Take the Kan-Etsu Expressway to the Joshin-Etsu Expressway and exit at the Tobu-Yunomaru I.C. Then follow the signs to Route 81 and Route 152 via Takeshi.
By train from Tokyo: Take the Azusa or Super Azusa Limited-Express train (JR) from Shinjuku Station. Get off at Matsumoto Station and take a bus or a taxi along the Venus Line road via Tobiratoge. (The bus runs only in summer) ** I stole these directions from the museum's web site. I hope they don't mind!
Elevation:Lowest: 1,930m Highest: 2,034m Total Ascent: 547m Total Descent: 544m
Technical considerations/difficulty: Anyone can do this walk. Most of the trails are gravel roads along cow pastures. There are no ropes, chains or anything strenuous. Much of this plateau is actually traversed by buses ferrying people between the main street and hotels on the plateau. I walked over ten miles today and don't feel like I did anything more strenuous than going to 7-11.
Facilities: A large outdoor museum. Utsukushigahara Outdoor Museum The michino eki has a restaurant and gift shops. There are also two lodging facilities which have their own restaurants and gift shops.
Thoughts/observations/recommendations:
"Utsukushigahara" means "Beautiful Field." This area lives up to its name.
What a great place this is. I'll have to go back when it's not cloudy. 😭
Although this plateau is a very easy walk, it has commanding views of each quadrant of the compass. Unfortunately, you don't get to take in those views on cloudy days. I will most definitely be going back here someday when it's nice.
It turns out that I logged my 800th peak on this hike. I think my climbing app stops counting at 1,000. Maybe I'll slow down a bit when I reach that number.
It is kind of neat to look back at where I've been. I can trace my footsteps from Nagano to Tokyo Station, from there to the Izu Peninsula, from there to--and up--Mt. Fuji. I can also trace my path around all of the 5 Lakes of Mt. Fuji. Today, when I was manipulating google earth to take a screenshot, I was a bit surprised to see all these green triangles appear when I took a long view from this area toward the south. Each one of the triangles represents a peak I've been on.
Enough about me. Let me show you some pictures from my day. 😆
The trail goes by, but not through, the open-air museum. That museum looks cool, actually. I don't know art, but I know if I like something. I liked this place. Most outdoor art makes me think, "This 'artist' should get a job." These installations made me think, "Wow. Good job."
There are a LOT of cows up there.
Fun fact, they eat bamboo grass.
This poor cow looks different than all the others. His only friends seem to be humans. I hear they don't even let him join in any bovine games.
Last week, when I was on Kirigamine (AKA Mt. Kuruma), I spotted these antennae and thought they looked cool. I didn't realize at the time that they are atop one of the 100 Meizan.
The Ogato Hotel is right next to the top of Mt. Ogato. (What a coincidence.) They have a restaurant and gift shop. Nice place.
The top of Mt. Ogato (AKA Utsukushigahara)
Ogato (王ヶ頭) translates to "King"~"Head." That word for head often is used to denote a mountaintop. eg, Tokyo's Mt. Mito (三頭山) means "Three-headed mountain."
This is on the top of the next peak, Mt. Ogahana.
Ogahana (王が鼻) means "King"~"nose." Supposedly, if you look up at the plateau from a particular area, the peak of Ogato looks like the crowned head of a king and this peak looks like his nose.
Cool, huh?
This plaque bummed me out. Around the circumference are all the mountains you could see there if it was clear.
Since I drove up here, I easily forgot how high it is. The way these trees have been shaped by the wind reminded me that this must be a rough place in inclement weather. It it the highest point around for quite a ways so it much catch a lot of extreme weather.
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?
