Kurikoma-san 2 & 3 and then 4

Last weekend a group of us took a trip up to the local mountain, Mt. Kurikoma, or, as the Japanese would say, Kurikoma-san. This 5,500 ft mountain is only about an hour drive from my house, so about 10 of us met at my place, went to a kombini (convenience store) for some snacks and headed on up there. (Below: this was when we went tree weeks ago. Notice how it is pretty much only green.)
Let’s see, just for the record there was Liz, Corrie, Colleen, Colin, Alliya, Sarah, Heather, Jesse, Grace, and myself. Right now is the famous koyo time in Japan, or leaf viewing time, so the parking areas around the trailhead was packed with cars and people. There was a ½ mile queue for parking but we quickly snatched an open spot along the road. This was the 4th time I’ve done Kurikoma san, the last time being a few weeks back when Liz, Colin and I actually climbed it twice in one day because we tried going down another route and got down to another parking area and soon learned that we were on the other side of the mountain and there wasn’t a connecting path back to our side of the mountain! (Above: this was last weekend (Oct 13th) and you can see the change in colors... but wait till the next picture!)The guy at the snack counter said we could hire a cab for about $130, or we could take the shortest path which was to just go up and back over the top- which we did. I was ok taking a cab, but the two youngsters convinced me that it wouldn’t be a problem and they were right, it wasn’t. That was officially the first time where I thought, “Man, look at me… I AM getting old!” That mistake actually worked out for the positive because we got a spectacular sunset on our way down. Well this time around we knew right what we were doing, so loaded up and started hiking. Whereas a few weeks ago the mountain was all green, boy how things were different this time around! The trees were so colorful the hills looked like they had been splattered with paint by Jackson Pollock himself! (Above: Boo yah! Look at those colors! That's what I'm talking about!) The colors were so vibrant. Sometimes you would turn a corner and there was a super pink tree, or tangerine orange, or sunflower yellow, standing by itself like the color fairy had come along with her magic wand and said, “THIS one!” Whoosh!! We took a different trail up this time and it was a bit longer but less traveled, and I think, more beautiful. As with any mountain, it’s a crapshoot as far as the views because at any time clouds could quickly roll in and you’re out of luck, but fortunately today this didn’t happen to us. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. The views from the top were clear and spectacular. We could see the surrounding towns, although we couldn’t figure out which one was ours. We got about ½ on the top before a big cloud covered the sun and it got very chilly rather quickly, so we headed back down. The speed demon Colin took a crew on another way down while I went back with a crew the shortest way. At the trailhead there are a couple inns, and one of them is this spectacular lodge with an incredible onsen that has large indoor and an outdoor rectangular tubs. (Below: the crew from left, Sarah, Liz, Cor-Bear, yours truly, Heather, Grace, Colin, Aliya, Colleen, Jesse)The water is the perfect soothing hot temp and overlooks the hills and road leading up to the parking area- so it’s kind of funny driving up because you see these little (because they’re far away) naked men and women up on the hill at the onsen. The water is a cloudy white opaque due to the minerals in the water. After getting out your skin feels so soft, and if you wore any silver it turns black for a couple weeks, which I find to be a rather nice change. We all thoroughly enjoyed the onsen and I still think the Japanese have the best system in the world when it comes to bathing and public baths. It seems like if there can be an onsen (hot spring) in a place, then there surely is one. They take advantage of every crack and crevice in the earth. This particular onsen is arguably one of the best I’ve ever been to in Japan and was certainly the perfect ending to the perfect day. (Below: Colleen and Grace, and some spectacular views from the top... we had a lucky day as far as the weather goes.)