The first weekend was by far the most enjoyable since it came from the "Little Adventures in Tokyo" book. The other two weekends were recommended by the "Gary D'A. Walter's Day Walks Near Tokyo" book and on the last weekend, Seth swore to never again go on a walk written up in that book. He declared this as he threw the book to the ground and started stomping on it!

In the end, Tara was relay glad Seth suggested that they get out on the weekends and hike around mountains. Not only did it help on the night she climbed Mt. Fuji, it was a really run way to get to seem some areas surrounding Tokyo.

Mt. Ishiwari

The only physical exercise we'd gotten prior to embarking on our weekend hikes was when we visited Kamakura together in July and when Tara had went to xxx Island in Hong Kong and rented a bike. Thus, we were not in shape when we embarked on our hike up Mt. Ishiwari.  We picked this hike out of the "Little Adventures in Tokyo" book since it was up a mountain near Fuji san and afforded a nice view of Fuji in clear weather. We were also encouraged by such phrases as "after the first set of steps, you find that you get into an easy rhythm", "an easy hike", etc. etc. etc. Thus, imagine our dismay when Tara had to put her head between her legs to keep from passing out before we were half way up the first set of stairs. Or, envision us hauling our asses up the mountain using ropes when it was too steep to climb.  But, I get ahead of myself.

We set out early on xxx July or August 2000 for our first training hike. Seth had been hiking before in the New Hampshire mountains, so he packed our backpack and we set out. The directions in the "Little Adventures in Tokyo" book were easy to follow and we soon arrived at the welcoming gate that marked the start of the hike. We thought the red tori gate and lions at either side of the entrance gave the mountain a neat atmosphere.  We were amazed at the kids racing up and down these stairs. We knew that we wouldn't be doing any running since there were so many stairs. We just decided to take it nice and slow up to the top. The book assured us that after the stairs, we'd get into a nice rhythm.

The steep stairs looked like they went on forever once we passed through the gate! They were steep and they did feel like they went on forever.  We were maybe halfway up when Tara started to feel dizzy and needed to rest. We immediately stopped at a nearby bench since she was suddenly seeing blackness coming in from the corners of her eyes. Seth had her put her head between her knees and wait until the feeling passed.  We were less than 15 minutes into our hike! Even so, we joked about how good it was for Tara that we were training and decided to press on up the rest of the stairs. Looking back, it was a really sad state to be in so early on our hike. We figured that the steps part of the hike really would be the hardest and that anyway on Fuji there would be no stairs. Finally we reached the end of the stairs!  We rested a while on picnic benches in a shelter and even had a friendly Japanese guy stop by and talk to us. Then, we continued onto the next part of the hike where we were supposed to "get into a good rhythm".

After a while, we arrived at a shire nestled at the base of a huge rock. The Japanese word for stone is "ishi" and the huge rock to the right of the shrine is how the mountain was named. We rested for a long while here at the shrine and met a bunch of friendly people. One man was especially friendly. He had come to the mountain only to visit the shrine. We also met a bunch of school kids (or was this on another hike?).  After the shrine, the path changed from a wide, upward sloping walking path to a narrow trail lined with ropes in many places to help you haul yourself up the mountain. The one encouraging fact was that the view through the trees was getting better and better the higher we climbed. It was hard work and we rested often.

We were very, very happy with how friendly everyone we met on the train was. We quickly learned two Japanese phrases "ki o tsukete" and "gambate" - take care and good luck! We continued to haul ourselves up the mountain using ropes and thought we'd never get to the top! Finally, the end was in sight since the trees thinned considerably. We had made it! It was time to spread out our picnic blanket (an obligatory item in Japan when watching fireworks, visiting Disneyland or having a picnic) and just enjoy. Tara had brought along watermelon for a picnic.
   
 

The views from the top were very pretty even though there was heavy cloud cover and we couldn't see Fuji san. It was not that peaceful though at the top of the mountain since a person was flying around in a light aircraft that sounded like it was running on a lawnmower engine. Whenever the plane came close to us, it got noisy. We were one of only three groups of people up on the mountain. The first people we talked with were Japanese and the second people were foreigners who had with them the same "Little Adventures in Tokyo" book! We rested for a nice, long time ontop of the mountain and enjoyed it.  We were delaying the inevitable - the descent. The top of the mountain was just gorgeous though and for a long time we were alone since the others had started down.

 
 

We finally started down ourselves since we didn't want to be stuck on the mountain when it got dark. We debated on exactly which route to take and decided on the shortest route that would take us right back to the starting point.  It was a very easy, gently sloping path - nothing at all like the steep ascent with ropes that we'd had. Seth led and Tara followed, taking way too many photos in Seth's opinion.

 
 

	As we walked down, we could see the lake out in front of us and we were surrounded by wildflowers. The swan boat on the lake was the most prominent feature until the clouds suddenly parted and Fuji san was looming right there in front of us!
It was a beautiful sight as the clouds floated by

 
 

The sight of Fuji so close up was worth the hard work up the mountain. Tara was so amazed that we'd been lucky enough to get a clearing of the clouds on our way down. It was an amazing sight. She couldn't stop looking at it and taking pictures the whole way down. It just seemed SO MUCH bigger than Mt. Ishiwari and it'd been alot of hard work to get up to where we were! She looked for the trails up Fuji but couldn't see any of the paths. It was especially neat for Tara to see Fuji since that is where she planned to be climbing in a month.

After seeing Fuji, the climb was (literally) all downhill from there. There were points when we weren't sure if we were on the correct trail or not, so we just headed downhill, choosing paths based upon which one looked best. We chose extremely well and emerged from the forest just behind the toilets across from the main entrance. Even though we were extremely tired, we were happy to arrive back at the base of the stairs where we'd started.

Mt. Oogusu

We deviated off the main hiking route when we saw a very pretty river running down in a valley along the right of the road.

Oogusu was not as fun as Mt. Ishiwari since we were walking through forest nearly the whole time with limited views, but LOTS of bugs. Seth helped a xxxx to xxxxx while we were walking.

We had seen this tower from really far away and our path finally led us to it. Believe it or not, we chose to climb up to the top - we had no view from the ground.
There was a view from the top of the tower. We sat around for a while and rested. Seth read. However, since we'd gotten a late start, we had to push on before we would have liked to.

We finally arrived at the real top of the mountain and it was deserted! There was a small restaurant and shop - but it was closed. By now we realized that we were really running late. All we could do was keep walking since we were almost exactly 1/2 way along the route recommended by the book. The time estimates in the book though were WAY too short for us.
 

We'd only passed two groups of people along the whole route. So, we were alone and it was getting dark quickly.  We hoped we could make it downhill in the time estimated by the book. The top of the mountain would have been nice earlier in the day since there was a small snack show and even higher observation tower. Unfortunately, they were both closed. As soon as we stepped off the top of Mt. Oogusu, we found ourselves descending dirt stairs shored up by logs. It was easy going, but dark already under the leaves. We reached an open area and followed a golf course for a while.
It was still light out, but we were worried.

We started pushing ourselves more and more since we had no light with us. The last part of the walk along a stream bed deep in the forest would have been the prettiest section of the walk if we hadn't been so concerned about the failing light. We were walking along a narrow path bordering the stream that crossed over on narrow bridges. A bit treacherous without any light. It was DARK when we finally emerged onto a road and found a vending machine!

We felt lucky that we hadn't spent even 15 more minutes longer at any point along the trail. From now on, we decided that we should pack a flashlight in our hiking supplies along with watermelon and frozen bottles of water. The walk had taken us at least twice as long as the Day Walks Near Tokyo book had described. A Two Hour, Easy Hike this was NOT!

It was in front of this vending machine that Seth took the Day Walks Near Tokyo book, threw it down on the ground and started stomping on it. We both decided that the best part of the walk was the section in the beginning when we'd deviated from the suggested route and explored along the river.

One of the Three Peaks of Mt. Takamizu

The first ascent was very steep and challenging to walk up. The views at the top were nice and overlooked a river way below us. We passed lots of people on the way down and alot of people on the way up passed us. We received and gave plenty of "gambate" - good luck! At the top there were a few neat views. For example, this one where we saw the evidence of logging cut into the mountain across from us.

Then, the endless walk began. Our first landmark was a shrine in the mountain. It took significantly longer then the book estimated to reach it and we were TIRED when we reached it. The frustrating thing about this trail was that it went up and down and up and down and up and down.

Our next landmark was another shrine. By this time, we were REALLY tired and not smiling anymore.

We'd met a man along the trail heading the other way who we had stopped to chat with and we found out that it would be nearly impossible to climb all three peaks in the time the book had estimated. He said to us many times "ki o tsukete" (take care) and seemed very concerned with what we planned to do.

Therefore, we decided to ignore the books suggested route and head off on a trail that looked like it headed back down towards the river we'd seen earlier. It was the best decision we'd made! The trail sloped gently downwards and was very easy to follow since we always had the river in sight. We got a wonderful surprise at the end as well when we emerged right at a vending machine. We bought many cans of soda and headed straight for the river edge.

You can tell how excited we were to be back in civilization!

Soaking our feet in the river felt wonderful! The best part of our walk had been when we'd deviated off the Day Walks Near Tokyo book's recommended path!

So, now after three weekends of hiking, Tara's boots were broken in and she planned to hike up Fuji - even though she still didn't know who she was going with.