Hiking Nantaisan round 2

Had a nice weekend this weekend, Hiked Nantai san for the 2nd time, although from the 4th station about halfway up. Miyagi san, the leader of the FHI hiking club, took us up this construction route, which im pretty sure was illegal, but the gate wasnt locked so we just moved it and drove on through. Legs are a bit sore even from the 4th station, but no where near as sore as the last time hiking from the bottom. Here is a picture of a sign at the base at the shrine that says the hiking route is closed.

It was quite cold at the top.

The point of the hike was to see a bit of the fall colors, but most had already fallen off at this elevation.

We did get a good view of Mt. Fuji though in the distance.

They were doing some kind of construction and were using this lift to get equipment up the mountain, sort of interesting I thought.

Motorcycle riding with FHI boys

Went on an awesome motorcycle ride with a few guys from FHI this weekend. It was great mostly because I didnt have to plan anything and they all have things like navigation so all I had to do was show up. First stop was a ropeway in Nikko that I have been to a few times, but it was a beautiful day.

We headed to a restaurant the specialized in game type animals where they served Bear and Deer, but they also served Salamander so we had to try it once.

The salamander was ok, kinda didnt really have much taste but you eat the whole thing.

Anyone who happens to read this who lives near Tochigi and like to ride motorcycles the route we rode on was from Nikko on 169 to 23 west, then back on 23 towards Yunishigawa Onsen, then to 121 and up to Hunter mountain on the Nichien Toll Road (400 yen for bikes) towards Shiobara I have ridden the opposite way on this road before, and this way is a better ride, I think we took 400 down to 56 then back to Utsunomiya.

Camping in Tochigi

Took the tent out for the first time to "practice" camping. On the way we stopped by the river side to eat some bbq fish. It was incredibly hot, and sitting by the BBQ was not the best idea but it was fun, delicious, and a nice view from the open restaurant of the river.

Usually the river is set up to where there is a platform and a sort of funnel to direct the fish up the platform, called yana in Japanese. You can basically then catch the fish by hand and cook them up yourself, but for whatever reason it wasnt set up. This is just a picture from the internet on what it was supposed to look like.

Campsite was pretty organized with concrete slabs for pitching the tent, 10 total but no one else was crazy enough to camp in the heat.

After getting the tent set up we hung out at the picnic tables and had a little snack to cool down. The campsite was equiped with the covered picnic table area with electrcity:

Then it started to poor rain and thunder and lightening. The tent held up fine with no leaks or issues. The power at the picnic tables actually went out due to the lightening at one point, but we were camping after all so it wasnt a big deal, and our nice neighbors lent us a gas lamp who were also using the picnic tables.
Here is Misato now with a river behind her from the rain.

During the thunderstorm we ate our dinner and drank beer/wine and our neighbors of about 10-15 guys with their 3 small daughters (same who lent us the lamp) who were having a big party gave us some of their bbq although i dont think we needed it after the huge burgers we ate.

Even though our neighbors seemed like they were going to be a loud group of drunk guys they turned out to be really kind and turned in about the same time we did so they didnt keep us up. I think they stayed in some of the bungalows near by like these.

There was also a bbq area next to the picnic tables for cooking, although we used a pan and a gas grill Misato had brought,

and sinks with plumbing, rags, sponges and dish soap. This all seemed to work well as the campsite was clean in the morning. You can also rent many things at the front office like a spatula, dishes, pan etc... they also gave us trash bags 1 for recyclables and 1 for all other garbage.

This particular campsite also had a stage just in case you want to have an event there.

There was also an onsen nearby so we were able to clean ourselves up before we slept. We were definitely roughing it!

Hiking Nantaisan

Misato and I are planning on climbing mount Fuji this summer so we thought we would practice by climbing the highest peak in Tochigi, which turned out to be a lot harder than we thought. It was really steep and took us about 8.5hrs total including a 40min break at the top for lunch.

The next day we were really sore but walked around lake Chuzenjiko a bit, saw the famous Kegon Falls, water falls.

Then we saw a demonstration of a katana sword by an actual katana swordsmith. This is the raw materials to finished product, the big block is the only part of the sword in the end. The rest is a handle to use while shaping the sword.

The process is about 12-15 times of putting the metal in the fire then hitting it with the hammer each which takes like 20min so we only watched a couple of the first few.

Hiking and Moto

Took a nice hike in northern tochigi/fukushima to Tashirosan and the nearby marsh, generally with the hiking club we dont just summit one mountain so we did a couple peaks, that you can see labeled on the post, Tashirosan and Taishakusan, the post is at Taishakusan.

The main purpose was this field in the clearing.

The next weekend Hiroi san and I went on another motorcycle ride in Tochigi up route 15 from Kanuma towards Ashio then back through route 58, both towards the top are not that great riding I suggest only riding route 58.