Monday, October 24, 2016 – Temple 60 (Yokomineji)

Today we had a beautiful day for the climb up to Temple 60 which is 740 meters up. It was sunny and a bit cool for climbing.

I didn’t take many photos. On the hike along the road, I passed many nice flower gardens again.

As we walked along the road, there was a huge distribution centre for vending machines, which are everywhere and great to get something to drink when you need it.

Most of the walk was along a pave country road until the last part, which was a hike up a trail and a hard climb. Even though it was a steady climb, I was able to take a couple photos along the trail.

When I arrived at the temple I was soaked. I found a sunny place to try to dry some of my things as it was very cool at the temple when out of the sunlight.

There were a couple of bus groups that arrived at the temple. I joined in with one group to chant the heart sutra. Afterwards one man came over and said he was impressed with me joining them in the heart sutra. Here are a couple photos of the temple and the bus groups.

There were some nice pink flowers growing from the temple retaining wall and in front of the washing station.

Since we are planning on climbing Mount Ishizuchi, we decided to take a different trail down the other side towards Mt Ishizuchi. I asked for directions at the temple. The lady showed me a gate we had to climb to. Here is a picture of the gate where you can see Mt Ishizuchi.

All of a sudden a Japanese man with camera appeared and wanted to take our picture. We asked if this was the trail to Mt Ishizuchi and he said henro -korogashi, which means hard and difficult trail. We said we had to give it a try as we had no other option.

The trail down wasn’t too bad. It was washed out in one place where a bridge was missing and you had to climb down to cross the river. The hike along the river with falls was breathtaking and I was very tempted to go for a dip in the clear cold water.

We really weren’t sure if we were on the right trail. However, there were the same red and blue signs, that we saw on the way up. The only difference was on the way up they had the name of the temple written in alphabet and on the way down it was in Japanese.

When we reach the end of the blue direction it ended on a paved road, which we were expecting. A bit further on the paved road we found a sign saying Ishizuchi Ropeway, which is where we wanted to go.

After a hard 4 km climb we reached the ropeway and checked out the bus schedule for when we go to the closest train station in two days time. We took the ropeway up to 1300 meters and then had another climb trying to find the Tamaya Ryokan at 1450 meters high. Finally we found it and it was nice to check in, have a cup of tea, a hot bath and nice dinner.

It was a long hard day, but we were happy to have make it and have a place to sleep. Tomorrow we will continue the climb to the top,  which is 1982 meters where we will stay for the evening.