Nearest station: Oku-tama
Mountains: Nokogiriyama (okutama) and Gozenyama
Ancient Shrine to the Tengu that watch over the mountain
During the first week of March in 2022, I went climbing with my friend Nadia to Mt Gozen via Nokogiriyama, which I had the previous year in August, and I remember that it was a fairly steep and diverse trail. I also remember sweating profusely at the top and hiding behind some trees to change down to my underwear at the top. Thankfully it was winter and didn't have to worry about that. I had hiked Mt. Takanosu by myself only 3 days earlier, where I encountered much more snow than I expected. I was still feeling a bit tired from that misadventure, but was eager to go out again. Although Mt Gozen is a bit smaller, I wasn't sure if crampons would be necessary, but I asked Nadia to bring a pair just in case. I had also brought some mini spikes for myself.
At first there was no sign of any snow on the trail. After about 10 minutes on a dirt trail we reached a very steep set of stairs, which is guaranteed to put almost anyone out of breath. After that, we passed by the Agato Shrine & Pagoda, before continuing our way upwards. The next section of the mountain gets a bit rocky, and is some very unique terrain. After stumbling over a few rocks, we reached another small shrine with a great view of the city below. It seemed we were already so high up from the station, but Mt. Gozen still towered over us in the distance. Shortly after, the two of us arrived at a small rock wall wall embedded with several tree roots and a long metal chain. Not a huge wall like the many on Myogi or Tsurugi, but it was a fun climbing experience nonetheless. From here on it was about another hour until the top of Nogogiriyama. At this point, the patches of snow and ice started to get a bit more frequent, so we both finally strapped on our snow spikes. As we were putting on the gear, a fairly overweight, but quite jolly British man passed by and greeted us, which was a bit of an unexpected but welcome encounter on a Japanese mountainside.
From the top of Nokogiri, we both decided to make our way over to Mt. Gozen. The first area was a horizontal walk along a very icy and narrow ridge, which I had to be very careful considering I only had a small grip in the centre of my boot. Although I was first worried about Nadia's inexperience, that was soon laid to rest as she was balancing herself far better than me thanks to years of yoga practice. In fact, Nadia's balance was so good, that right before we reached the summit I noticed she was no longer wearing her crampons. I asked her why she took them off, and we realized that somewhere up the trail they had slipped off her feet and she didn't even notice!
It was a great and sunny view from the top of Mount Gozen. Since the two of us hadn't really caught a break since we started climbing, we finally sat down for a nice lunch snack. As we were eating, another hiker had climbed up and was holding Nadia's ice crampons! She was very friendly and eventually joined us during our long descent down the mountain. The three of us decided to take a path which would bring us down by the Okutama dam. Since it was now the early afternoon, the snow and ice was melting, and the mud was making it a bit slippery. I had a small fall, but nothing too drastic. Eventually, we were able to take off the crampons and carry on as usual. But I noticed that although we had been hiking for a while, our elevation hadn't changed too much. As we got to the final section, the path became extremely steep, so we had to grab onto lots of tree branches for balance. Eventually, we arrived by the dam where a father and his children were having a birthday cake. We wished his daughter a happy birthday, and continued along the road until we reached the bus stop. We had just missed the bus, and the next one wouldn't be coming for another hour, but fortunately the father and his two kids offered us a ride in their deluxe van. They dropped us off at a hot spring by Okutama station, and we got in just before closing. Normally this hot spring is very overcrowded - my first experience there I couldn't even fit into the bath, but at this time of the evening, we basically had the whole place to ourselves. It was an exhausting experience, but very rewarding - exactly what a hiking adventure should be! And we both made a new hiking friend as well. I also learned that Yoga seems to go in hand with hiking... I need to work on my core strength.
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