Ohyama Mountain Trek

Posted on June 18, 2007 by Nene

Japanese love to climb mountains because, for them, mountains are holy. My husband has climbed many mountains in Japan, and in other countries. In fact, he climbed one of our popular and risky mountains in the Philippines, a saw-tooth shaped mountain, which is called as Mt. Guiting-guiting with the elevation of 2,058m (6,380 ft).

In contrast, I don’t like climbing mountain, but because of my love to my husband, I couldn't refuse to go with him to climb Mt. Ohyama, a 1,252m-high mountain situated on the border of Isehara, Hadano and Atsugi, a popular sightseeing spot in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

On that morning, we got up early, wore our mountaineering gear, brought my sketching pad and pencil, and went to Isehara Station, Odakyu line. We bought some foods from a convenience store for our breakfast and lunch. We had our breakfast at a bench near the bus station while waiting for the bus.

When we arrived at the foot of the mountain, there were some souvenir shops and restaurants. The famous souvenir there was Japanese top. While we start to climb, I noticed that on the cemented stairs there was a painting of some tops. My husband told me that I have to count them while climbing. But I didn’t follow what he said, instead I looked around the place while climbing.

I knew from my husband that climbing mountains in Japan is very convenient, because there are cable cars, and stairs. I got tired easily because I haven’t climbed a mountain for a long time. I felt relieved when we got on a cable car. While we were hiking on the mountain, I noticed there were many kinds of trees on display. Since I love drawing trees, when I saw some peculiar and eye-catching trees, I stopped and sketched them on my pad.

While we were climbing, we were also having fun. We talked about our love story, things happened in the past, our plans for the future, sceneries we saw in the mountain, etc. That way we didn’t notice we almost reached the peak, so we stopped for awhile and had a rest. Then, we continued our trek again. We met some old people who were already going down the mountain. I noticed that they seemed so full of energy as they greeted us “Konnichiwa”. They seemed like they have climbed the mountain several times that they didn’t mind exhaustion. When we reached the peak of the mountain, I felt a bit disappointed because I couldn’t see Mt. Fuji from there. The visibility at that time was not good because it was foggy. Nevertheless, I was still delighted of my mountaineering experience. We had our lunch and came down from the mountain tired but fulfilled.