Hiking attempts part 2

Odai-ga-hara to Osugi

Details for the hiking trips we were looking at were described in the Lonely Planet Hiking Guide Japan. Based on that, we headed further south to Nara Prefecture. Even though this is one of the rainiest areas in Japan, it’s quite far south, and the temperatures are fairly warm. Plus the hike started from a high point (cool) and quickly dropped to lower (and warmer) elevations. We got to Yamato-kami-ichi in the evening, but there weren’t any more buses until the next day. We wandered around, and then headed a stop or two over to Yoshino and after hiking up the hill (the cable car closed at 5 pm) and walking through the practically empty town, found a small minshuku to stay at. Later, we found out that Yoshino is actually quite a famous place – but in the dark, you really can’t see anything.

In the morning, we headed back to Yamato-kami-ichi, and caught the bus up to the trailhead in Yoshino-Kumano National park. The weather was nice heading up, and we were pretty excited about actually getting to hike. The trail was described as being about 29 km, but all downhill, through a gorge, with excellent waterfalls. As we were getting off the bus, the driver was strongly emphasizing when the last bus from the park left in the afternoon. We told him it was ok, because we were going to hike through. Then he got very excited and told us that we couldn’t do that. So we said ok, and got off the bus. When we went into the nature centre, we got the same thing from the guy there, and actually saw some signs. Apparently some really heavy rains had washed out a large section of trail a couple years ago, and it hasn’t been fixed yet. Also, from what I understood (no guarantees of accuracy) there are no more buses or boats running at the end of the trail, so even if we had been able to get through, it would have added an extra 10 km of road to hike out to Osugi, and possibly another 40km after that. 

And then it started to pour. So we dropped our camping gear at the nature centre, hiked in until the damaged part of the trail – which was marked by a large gate and a bunch of rusting construction equipment – and then came back. We had a wet ride on the bus back to the station, and from there back to Osaka, thoroughly disappointed with our failed attempts!

From Osaka, we took overnight buses – L to Hiroshima, and me back to Tokyo (and then the train to Hitachi) as I had a class in a couple of days. Ask L about his trip to Hiroshima and his culinary experiences….!

Next: more hiking in bad weather!