Caveman hikes and bikes. Saku City to Mt. Otake via the twin ponds
Greetings, cavedwellers!
Here's a hike after a long up-hill bike ride for you.
Location: Saku City, Nozawa ~ Mt. Otake, Sakuho
Starting and stopping point: Riding, Saku City, Nozawa. Hiking, the Futago Ike Hutte ("Twin Pond Hut")
Peaks bagged: Mt. Otake (大岳)
(First-time) peaks #886
Getting there/getting around:
- I took my bicycle up the Tateshina Skyline. That road is closed to cars because of snow until about June.
- I'm not sure where people who stay at the Futago Ike Hutte park. There is a parking lot near the hut, but that is accessed by a 林道 (forest road) that is off-limits to regular cars. Perhaps their patrons park at the Ogawahara Pass. That's about a 3~4km walk away, back on the Tateshina Skyline.
Map:
山と高原地図 八ヶ岳 蓼科・美ヶ原・霧ヶ峰 2024 **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 (Mapple)'s site, you should be able to find the latest version.
Weather Information: Kitayokodake English Mountain Weather Forecast Yokodake
Time and elevation:
Total Time: 9:41 Break time: 1:36 Distance: bicycle: 52.5km hiking 5.7km
Elevation: Lowest: 672m Highest: 2,380m
Total ascent/descent 2,041m/2,037m
Ascent: bicycle: 1,592m hiking: 449m
Descent: bicycle: 1,606m hiking: 431m
Technical considerations/difficulty:
This ride is a pain in the butt, literally. It's a long bike ride! Saku City is in a river valley and the goal is high up in the mountains, so it's a long, up-hill climb. The Tateshina Skyline, which goes from Saku on the east to Ikenotaira on the west via the Ogawahara Pass is unrelentingly steep. My average speed going up was about 7.5 km/h, going down, it was 37 km/h. Often, I was going 48 km/h downhill. Zoom. 🚀
The hike is fairly arduous. It's steep and much of it is across boulder fields. You can't make very good time because you really have to choose where to put your feet for each step. There is still snow between the boulders in May, so it is necessary to be especially cautious.
Facilities:
This is the link to the lodge and campground and hut at the Futago Ike. It also covers the Tateshina Sanso. If you want to stay there, you need reservations. They're open from the end of April to November. Tateshina2531 They have food. Pay toilets. They're fairly serious about keeping the two ponds clean. The campsites are well away from the shores and they don't allow you to bring food or any bags near the water.
Thoughts/observations/recommendations:
That was fun. I didn't go nearly as far on this trek as I had planned. My plan was to go beyond Otake to Kitayokodake and to make a wide loop back to the Futago Ike. That seemed similar in distance and elevation to a biking/hiking trek I made last year to Futagoyama and Tateshina. See last year's post. The hike up from the Futagoike was more arduous than the hike up to Tateshina though so I cut it short. That's ok. I don't want to exhaust all of my hiking opportunities too quickly. As it is, I probably have only 2 or 3 more hikes on the Yatsugatake Range until I've walked it from one end to the other.
Bring water. There are waterholes on the map that don't seem to exist on the ground. There is one stream on the Tateshina Skyline between JAXA and the trailhead that is always running. It's in the area where you start to encounter a lot of private mountain retreats.
Let's look at some pictures.
First, the bicycle portion
🥶Brrr🥶
Looking at Mt. Asama
"Road closed ahead"
This is about halfway up the Tateshina Skyline. I would get off it just before the Ogawaratoge Pass.
Lake Misasako (Beautiful Bamboo Grass Lake) is a small pond popular with fishermen. It's a frequent destination for one of my shorter bike rides. There is also an outdoor speedskating rink right around the corner from it. That was a neat discovery.
On the way up the Tateshina Skyline, you encounter the
Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) deep space exploration site.
There are several dishes like this in the area. The skies here are good for looking at stars.
Just after the JAXA site the road is closed until June because of snow. I don't think they need to worry about that this year. All the snow's melted off the road already.
Just short of the Ogawahara Pass, I left the pavement and took a 林道 --forest road--for another few kilometers to the trailhead.
Now, the hike
After parking my bike, I took a quick look at one of the twin ponds. They're low this year.
Note the snow on the far shore.
You can stay in the hut or camp here. There's a link above.
Starting out . . .
There are a lot of boulders around here. They are cool looking but demand a lot of attention and make for slow going.
I was rewarded with this view of Mt. Akadake (Red Peak) from the top of Mt. Otake (Big Peak). Akadake is one of the 100 Famous Mountains. Check out this post (after you finish this one.😉)
Lunch was peanut butter on homemade banana bread on the top of Mt. Otake. Oh my God, that was good.
Usually I don't eat on hiking days until I get to the highest peak of the day--and that was my plan for today. I burned off so many calories on the bike ride though that I dug into my emergency stash of food and started eating long before lunch. That was good, too. My dad always said that everything tastes better in the woods. He was right.
Another view from the top
Looking east toward Mt. Arafune and Gunma
Looking southwest toward Saitama and Yamanashi. The pond in the foreground is Amaike. (Rain Pond)
Mt. Tateshina, one of the 100 Famous Mountains, is the one on the left
Back down to the twin ponds. This is the eastern one.
Well, that's all for today. If you want to see a similar excursion, check this on out.
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Caveman out
