http://russiajapankorea.blogspot.jp/2014/03/yatsugatake-akadake-climbing.html
Daibosatsurei (大菩薩嶺), May 6, 2011
This time our hiking destination was Daibosatsurei, a 2057 meters tall mountain located in Koshu (甲州) city in Yamanashi prefecture that was included in the book "100 Famous Japanese Mountains" by Kyuya Fukada in 1964. Fukuda, who was a mountain climber himself, based his choice of the mountains for the selection on their "grace, history and individuality".
We arrived to Koshu (Enzan station) on Friday night after a two hours train ride from the western part of Tokyo. The Chuo line goes there straight, so we only had to switch from Chuo Line to Chuo Main Line (that are a continuation of one other) at Takao station once, which was very convenient, especially after we had to sometimes change over five times when going for our other hiking trips.
We were at the station around 8:30pm and walked for about 15 minutes to find our hotel, which was a very old Japanese traditional style inn, named Nakamura-ya (中村屋). The road that led to the inn was lightened with beautiful warm yellow glass lanterns, somewhat of art-nouveau style, and, though we could not really distinguish that until the morning, had some very old buildings, both western of Taisho period and traditional Japanese, on both sides of the street. Though the city under the name Koshu was formed quite recently, the town must have its history go rather deep into the past.
The inn we stayed at was made of two connecting buildings, one very old, and a new one, which was probably attached to it later, something that was practiced by many inns' owners around the country during the years of domestic traveling boom, which followed the bubble economy of the late 80s. It also had a traditional style garden. The owner, a pleasant looking woman in her 60s, greeted us at the entrance saying that we were the only ones staying there that night. The place was really spacious, having up to 20 tatami rooms, so it was a big surprise to have no neighbors that night. Though Yamanashi prefecture, located to the west off Tokyo, is relatively far from where the earthquake of March 11 happened and the areas with possible radiation threats (though all back to normal now), it is possible to assume that people are still very reluctant to leave their homes for longer periods of time. I think that on all other occasions during our travels in Japan, except for when the inn had only one extra room for guests, like in the place we stayed in Otsuki city in June 2009, the inns had other customers staying there together with us. As for the inn in Otsuki, it was a very old house as well, where a big Japanese family lived, and they were subletting one of their second floor rooms to the temporary visitors of the city.
The onsen in Nakamura-ya was lovely and we could enjoy it without any time limitation. In most cases, when the inn only has one small onsen without being separated into independent sections for men and women, the customers take turns to use it for half an hour or so according to the time discussed with the owner. The water in Nakamura-onsen was a little bit slippery, probably because of the nature of the water in these areas.
The dinner at the inn consisted of almost every Japanese cuisine specialty - from sashimi to sukiyaki, and tempura was served with green tea salt, something we tasted for the first time. The desert made of peach was also very refreshing. Since the area is famous for its peaches and grapes, most likely the fruits were from local gardens.
The next morning we got on the earliest bus from the station that took us to the bottom of the mountain where we first had coffee and "yomogi dango" (ヨモギ団子) (sweet rice dumplings with mugwort weed mixed into the rice dough and generously filled with azuki beans) in another old family shop, that was standing there, according to the female owner who served us coffee, for over 70 years. The shop was decorated with pictures and posters showing the beauty of the mountain we were about to climb and selling all kinds of jams - from strawberry to apple - made from local fruits and berries.
Right at the bottom of the mountain one can find an amazing temple called Unpoji (雲峰寺) with 248 stone stairs to reach the entrance gate. It was built in the year of 745 and is devoted to the goddess of Kannon which, according to the legend, revealed herself to the monks who visited these area for ascetic training. The statue of Kannon in the garden of this temple is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. There is a small active monastery there even nowadays.
Shortly after we entered the forest to follow the chosen route we heard a female deer crying and could see it rushing through the trees away from us somewhat 30 meters upwards. Since it was very early, we must have woken her up and she made the noise to warn her herd. Although after this encounter we hoped to see more deers during our climb, that was the only time we were lucky enough to distinguish their brown figures among the brown branches.
In the beginning of May the mountain forests here in Japan only show a very slight touch of spring - there are some early flowers here and there, but only a few trees seem to have developed buds. The general color at the bottom part of the mountain is brownish or even a little bit orange. Some grass is dry, probably left from the previous year. The tree that just started blossoming, although only at the lower part of the mountain, is the mitsuba azalea (ミツバツツジ). Its purple flowers look especially wonderful with the colors of still unawakened nature in the background. One can see more green towards the upper part of the mountain, though these are the evergreen fur trees and the early moss, with rare but beautifully fragile early white flowers of shamrock that show their lovely heads from under the moss covered in parts by unmelted snow.
It was a cloudy day, so we could not really enjoy the views from the mountain, but, on the contrary, this gave us a chance to fully dive into mysterious atmosphere of the forest - the more we climbed the mistier and foggier it would become, the air being humid and slightly sweet, veiling the sight of the trees all of different shapes and colors. Some of the trees had profound animal marks on them, so when we saw a bear warning sight at one point, we became very alert remembering our bear encounter experience when climbing Yatsugatake.
We reached the top of Daibosatsurei mountain in around four hours after starting our journey as we were frequently stopping to take the pictures. The normal climb should take three hours only (and three more hours to go down). The top of the mountain is marked with a wooden pole about one meter tall. In fine weather we could have seen some amazing view, that included Fuji-san, but it was endless layers of clouds spreading in front of our eyes, adding to the mystical atmosphere that characterized this climb.
We climbed down in time for our bus, checked the Unpoji temple once again, took some pictures of flowers there, bought some fresh strawberries from the same shop where we drank coffee in the morning and were ready to go back to the station.
Looking back at the mountain we just climbed we could see that its top was still densely covered with clouds.
While in the bus we had a completely unexpected surprise - the sky cleared up bringing to our sight the magnificent and heavenly white peak of the holy Japanese mountain Fuji.
At the station we entered a small food shop where they were serving "houtou nabe" (ほうとう鍋) - a traditional Koshu meal - udon with a lot of vegetables, mushrooms, and pork. The dish was indescribably delicious, especially after such a demanding climb, that lasted for almost eight hours of non-stop walking. The food place is called "Yumenoya" (夢乃家) and is run by a couple who prepare the food using the vegetables from their own farm. We were so into the food that we even stopped talking or looking at each other and when we did it after all - both our faces were pinkish from the hot and delicious food we just tasted.
