Trekkin’ Takao

Last May, toward the end of our Japan stay, we headed to nearby Mount Takao for a short hike.

Says Wikipedia, “Mount Takao is closely associated with the Shinto-Buddhist tengu, supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore. The mountain is also renowned for Shugendō, the mountain asceticism focusing on strict discipline. A Buddhist temple, Takaosan Yakuōin Yūkiji, is located on the mountain, and attracts many visitors who pray to the tengu for good fortune.”

Though we got a bit of a late start, it was a warm, bright day, and Flynn was rallyable.

Takao has eight trails to choose from; we went with the main one, Trail 1, which is paved the whole way. Other trails are unpaved and dotted with waterfalls (also a suspension bridge) it would’ve been neat to see. (Next time?) We started out all three of us together, with Ray turning back a half hour in to start his solo day+ in Tokyo (a great decision we made: both of us taking a solid chunk of alone time, including an overnight in a central Tokyo Airbnb).

Flynn was a trooper! And frankly so was I. The hike was pretty steep for stretches.

Exposed roots kept stopping us in our tracks. Also, for me, the orchid-iris hybrid I spotted around and beyond Tokyo.

Our friend Henry, who’s seen a lot more of Japan than we have, told us that the above—dense green that forms more of a geometric than a rolling profile—is all over Japan.

We’d actually intended to travel around more than we did in the country, with Kyoto, Nara, and Hiroshima being on our Japan list early on. But it got to feeling like too much—too much money, too much energy required to map it out and then make it happen—at this point in our journey, and so we decided to do less. It was the right decision.

At 37 meters tall and ~500 years old, Takosugi is the second largest tree on Takao. Apparently, a long while back, during construction of the path to the Buddhist temple on the mountain, Takosugi stood in the way, so it was decided to cut the cedar down. The story goes, after hearing the plan, Takosugi decided to pull its roots out of the path overnight so as not to interfere with construction. People at the time attributed this to the magical power of the tengu, and the octopus cedar came to be known as a tree that symbolized opening doors and new paths. Ever since, people have come seeking its good luck.

In addition to Mount Takao’s most popular temple, Takaosan Yakuōin Yūkiji (built in 744!), many other shrines and statues and smaller presentations are scattered along the trails. I read that most are dedicated to the tengu, considered to be guardians of the mountain, but several are dedicated to the Buddha and other Buddhist and Shinto figures. 

At this point we were headed back down. (I don’t have photos from the summit, where, though I didn’t realize/know to look closely at the time, on clear days Mount Fuji is visible.) Our plan to take the cable car partway didn’t pan out, as we managed to miss the last car. Stopping for vending-machine ice cream (our wafer-waffle-wrapped fav) was definitely called for.

We half-walked/half-ran, jelly-legged, to the bottom as the day closed in around us.

At the end of our trek we found this quiet scene—quite the difference from the daylit crowds of a few hours earlier. As we continued on to the train station, we probably bounced around topics of Pokémon, Japanese ice cream, a character in a book we were reading together or a movie we’d just seen, when one of us would get his next screen time, etc, etc, etc, interspersed with family nonsense, jokes, songs…and while it feels especially easy for me, now, eight months after our return, with Life pooling and pooling (and puberty looming!), to wax tender about those long unrestrained streams I so often got in on while walking with my boy, it was always easy. A trip highlight needing no hindsight.

So, yeah: Mount Takao, lush and lovely. Visit if you can.