Mountain: Ōhira-yama
Herbie looking ahead to more things to sniff. Mount Ohira is in the background
The first month of 2022 was quite a strange experience. Due to the sudden return of the coronavirus via the omicron variant, Japan's border restrictions went into a new level of crazy. I was locked in a hotel for 2 weeks despite testing negative 7 times on PCR tests and being double vaccinated, and the same was going to happen to my friend Tommy as he returned from the states a few weeks after. So, while he was in Corona jail, it was my duty to watch after his dog Herbie, part-lab, part-kaiken breed - and pure energy. The two of us had gone on many nice treks around the neighbourhood, but I was hoping to go on an actual hike at some point. Without a car, it would be quite a challenge. But after seeing the near limitless energy of the little guy, I decided we could handle it. Tommy himself said it was impossible to tire Herbie out, so one Saturday, I wanted to test that theory by heading to Mt. Ohira, a nearby hill. I packed a bunch of water, dog food and treats, and we were off on an adventure!
There was a small hiking trail behind Tommy's house. This path could take quite far before having to step back onto a road. There was one small challenge along the way - a tiny and very poorly constructed log bridge over a small river. I had taken Herbie along this path several times and realized that if I led him, then he would follow behind me. But if he reached the sketchy bridge first, he would rather jump in the muddy river instead of trying to cross it - which he did successfully one day, causing me to drop the leash, resulting in him running around in the muddy pond for several minutes until I finally had to go in myself to catch him - this ended in a long shower for the both of us. Fortunately, we had both learned our lesson here, and so on this day we safely moved over the bridge. About half an hour later we took a trail that passed a JAXA observation centre, and ended up in the woods behind some sort of factory.
Next, we found ourselves along another long pathway which took us to a roadside rest area. We had been walking for almost two hours at this point, but Herbie was nowhere near tired. So after a snack and a sip of water, we both kept eagerly moving forward. Eventually, we had to leave the forest trail and walk alongside the road. For the most part, there was a wide sidewalk or guardrail, except for about 15 minutes near a baseball field where the walkway just ended. This was probably the most stressful part of the hike as I had to keep Herbie on a short leash this whole time, but he was a good boy the whole time and didn't try to pull. Actually, one of the locals commented how well behaved Heribe was walking, as he didn't jump, bark, run towards traffic or strain the leash. Another 40 minutes walking along some countryside roads and along the Toki river, we finally got a view of Mt. Ohira. The final little challenge was finding the entrance path to the hill, and after a short detour we made our way up the little mountain. What would normally be an easy 20 minute hike, felt so much more difficult since the two of us had spent over 3 hours getting there. Alas, we reached the Shrine at the top of the mountain. Afterwards, we both sat down at a lookout and ate lunch together. Herbie gobbled up all the food and water pretty fast, so on the way back I stopped by a vending machine to get him a bottle of water.
On the way back, I didn't want to walk that 15 minute path without the sidewalk again, so I followed my trails app, which led me to a secret pathway back into the forest. The problem here was this trail was not so well maintained, so the two of us had to be careful not to get lost. There was one point in the middle of the forest trail where even I was having difficulty figuring out which way to go, but Herbie's good instincts pointed us in the right direction, eventually bringing us back to familiar ground. About an hour or so later, the two of us finally made it back to my friend's house. Herbie filled up on more water and got a big treat for being such a well behaved hiking buddy. He then proceeded to flop down on the floor and have a big nap. I had done the impossible - make Herbie tired. Of course an hour later he was back to full energy and ready to climb a second mountain.
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