Mountain: Ryōgami (1723m)
Trailhead: Shorisasu (Access only by car. Phone reservation needed)
Mount Ryogami (Ryōgami-san) is one of Japan's 100 famous mountains located in Oku-Chichibu National Park between Saitama and Gunma Prefectures. It is a popular day hike course via Hinata-Ohya trailhead, but also offers some very challenging alternative routes. The most challenging course is the route from the Hacho Tunnel, however, at the time of our climb, all access to the entire road had been temporarily closed down. This advanced course has lots of chain walls in a "danger valley" between the east and west peaks leading up to the summit. More interestingly, I heard there was a small Ryōgami shrine hidden in the middle of the valley. I thought, since we couldn't start from the tunnel, this would be a good goal for the day's adventure. My hiking sensei, Mr. Naoyasu Kikuchi reserved a spot on the lesser travelled Shiroisasu entrance (Its a bit pricey at 1000 yen per person, but you also get a pin badge)
I left my apartment at the crack of dawn and met Kikuchi-sensei and my hiking friend Makiko in the parking lot at about 5:30am, and after about 2 hours drive along the highway and the various winding mountain roads, we finally reached the trail head. We were greeting by a very talkative older man who gave us a detailed explanation of the course and provided us with some maps. We found a deer skull hanging on a branch at the start of the trail, but with the kind weather and beautiful scenery it didn't seem too ominous. After a short trek oven the fallen leaves with a golden sunrise on our backs, we reached the Shoryuno Falls. Along the way the course opened up to a beautiful rocky valley and open plains. From this point, the trail gets a bit steep, but it was nothing too intense. The second hour of hiking was up steady slope with some great sights of the mountainside. But before I knew it, we had already reached the summit.
We only spent a moment at the top, and then made our way to start of the "Hatcho Trail". There is a caution sign here to warn any novice hikers to avoid the route. We descended two small chain walls and walked though a very steep route surrounded by many trees. At this point I heard Naoyasu suddenly shout out and fall to the ground. I climbed back down to check up on him. Unfortunately, he had pulled a muscle in his leg pretty badly. It was nothing too serious, but he would definitely need to rest up for a couple hours to avoid any serious injury. I gave him some medicine and muscle relief spray. We were about a 2 hour round trip to the hidden shrine, and since he needed that long to recover, it was decided he would rest up near the summit, while the 2 of us would make our way to the shrine and back.
Makiko & I continued along the ridge line until we reached the East Peak, which had some spectacular views of the area, but overall it wasn't anything too challenging. I was getting a bit tired myself and we were both a bit worried to get back on time to check on Naoyasu. Finally, we reached the top of the valley. We descended a very steep chain wall, and then another, and another. I decided to take off my backpack so I would have a little more balance and less weight to worry about while scaling up and down the walls. Several chain sections later we reached the bottom of the valley and crossed a knife ridge rock. There, we finally arrived our goal - the hidden Ryogami shrine! Now, it was time to climb back up the wall.
The two of us pushed forwards and took very few breaks, as we didn't want to keep Kikuchi-sensei waiting too long, although we took a good 5 minute break halfway up the wall so I could catch my breath. We arrived back at Mt. Ryogami's summit within the hour, and met Naoyasu just below the top. It seemed he had a good nap and his leg had improved enough to continue downwards. By the time we reached the waterfall, the friendly old man from the parking had come up to look for us. He hadn't expected that we were going to travel past the summit, so he had become worried. When we got back to the parking lot he showed us several photo albums and gave us a pin badge as a reward. It was a pretty decent deal for 1000 yen.
We then drove to the nearby Ryogami Hot Spring. After a refreshing dip and change of clothes, we then stopped by a local restaurant to enjoy some traditional Chichibu specialties, such as a spicy Saitama craft cola. I was fairly hungry, so I grabbed a big plate of Oyako-don, Tempura chicken, miso soup, as well as some "gobo (burdock) fries".
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