The Hoshida 60 Chapter 4 – Scrambled

After a two week hiatus for the holidays, I once again find myself on a blustery weekday afternoon following the slope towards Hoshida Myoken Gu, past my daughter’s kindergarten and around the eastern face of Mt Myoken to the affluent enclave of Myokenhigashi. A series of concrete stairs sandwiched between the forests of the botanical gardens and the million-dollar abodes lead me to a crisscross network of quiet streets affording spectacular views towards Kyoto city on the horizon, the kind of hilly vistas that would not feel out of place in San Francisco. I hug the far eastern section of the neighborhood, following a row of sakura trees overlooking the secluded houses of Kisaichi snuggled firmly against the slopes of the Katano mountains.

The muted light of the overcast afternoon brings a calmness to the air, the lack of wind offering a respite from the wintry gales that have marked the change of seasons. I walk slowly, looking for an entrance to my first peak of the day, a mountain that appears on my maps to have no clear path to the top. A gap in a chain link fence draws me in, so I leave the main road like a sheepish trespasser and duck behind the protective cover of the fencing. Progress is soon halted by a maze of thick Kuzu vines. I drop to my knees and pull the pocket knife out of the rucksack and set about clearing a path through the tangled mess. Just meters on, a clearing in the brush reveals an easier access point from the adjacent road, as I am once again punished for my impatience. I skirt the edge of an eroded wash and make my way, step by careful step, up the untracked eastern face of the knob.

The first twenty peaks have provided a good training ground for my improvised climbs: I can always find a way up to the top, guided mostly by my instinct and careful study of the impossibly steep slopes in search of a weakness. Instead of heading straight up the face, I traverse in a roughly diagonal line, grasping onto pine trunks towards the shoulder on the horizon. I soon pop out and take the final few steps to the top of ㉒ Mt Konosu (鴻ノ巣山), only to find a signpost and a green erosion net draping down the more well-traveled western face. After a quick drink of water, I grasp onto this safely net and lower myself through the sandy scree to a saddle sitting just above a row of houses separated by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Someone is really doing their best to keep the hikers out.

Despite the awkward access, the leaf-littered path is easy to follow and pleasant on both the eyes and the feet, though it is likely a viper death trap in the summer season. With the abundance of both hornets and snakes, I am grateful for my decision to climb during the colder months of the year, determined as I am to complete the remaining two-thirds of the peaks before the return of the beasts. I continue through the elongated saddle, which spits me out onto an angled face accompanied by the gold tints of patches of eulalia grass lining both sides of the narrow track. It is just a five-minute scramble to reach the summit of the 192m ㉓ Mt Nandan (南谷山) and the bird’s-eye peek into the patchwork of affluent homes of Myokenhigashi. 

A proper track my route now becomes, along a heavily eroded spur paralleling a network of rusty, half-buried water pipes with manholes covering the maintenance access points. This piques my interest, as I run through scenarios in my head as to why there would be a need for water up here. My question is soon answered at the crest of the next rise, with a circular signage in red for fire hydrant affixed to a maple tree above a rectangular valve box cover sitting on the forest floor. Forest fire scenarios now run through my head as I continue plodding along, reaching a monster of a concrete water tank constructed smack dab in the middle of the spur.

The GPS indicates an unmarked junction here, so I turn east down a series of fake log steps and over a fixed rope and ‘No Trespassing’ sign to arrive inside of the Hoshida Enchi park. The public green space sports a spider’s web of well-maintained paths fanning out from an immense suspension bridge spanning a narrow valley between the mountain ridges. The bridge itself is your typical bubble-era concrete monolith, attracting throngs of tourists in the autumn season who seek a selfie to satisfy their Instagram addictions. By a simple act of luck, I am here on a Tuesday, when the bridge is shuttered and my only companions are a pair of tits (the bird, mind you – get your head out of the gutter) that flitter among the trees. I take a quick gander at the bridge and retreat back to the forbidden path, which continues on the opposite side of the spur along an additional roped-off trail.

I slip under the rope and scale the stairs to reach a second water tank, looking much like a twin of the water receptacle sitting on the opposing ridge. These must surely be a lifesaver in the event of a forest fire, if the pipework is still in working order that is. The undulating spur is a pleasant walk, along an avenue of hardwoods and pine trees flanking both sides of the narrow path. Leaf litter and browned pine needles cushion the feet, and the tree-covered  ㉔Takeru-ga-mine (哮ヶ峰) soon comes into view. Translating as ‘howl or roar’, the name is an intriguing choice, for there are definitely no tigers in the vicinity, but perhaps in ancient times a wolf or two scrambled up this hidden knob to relay a message to the hungry pack waiting below.

Unfortunately the track dead ends here, so I am forced to head back the way I had come and retrace my steps to the first water tower and turn left along a spur heading southwest towards the main Hoshida ridge line. Through gaps in the trees I can just about make out the buildings of southern Kyoto through the overcast haze as I flow effortlessly over the crests and troughs. My mind enters what I call the tozan trance, where you reach a climbing rhythm and can totally space out on obscure thoughts, or, on this particular afternoon, on thoughts of Cookie Monster and his quest for chocolate cookies.

And of course when that furry muppet comes into your head, you just can’t shake the thought and will even start speaking in cookie tongues. Me reach the top of the cookie summit of ㉕ Mt Hinami (日南山) and I snap out of my sugary trance, only to be possessed by the spirits of Grover, Miss Piggy and Fozzie as I engage in an internal three-way dialogue, which haunts me until the top of the adjacent spur and my third water tank of the day. I now running through the logistics in my head, of how these water storage facilities could have been constructed in such an inaccessible place. 

Route-finding now takes center stage at the spur soon becomes overgrown, with a great deal of toppled trees blocking forward momentum. I slither in and out of the unkept mess and reach a split in the spur. I check the maps and realize a bit of a detour is necessary, so I continue due west over a series of false summit until finally topping out on  ㉖ Mt Anamushi (穴虫山), the peak of the insect hole. I wonder if this name refers to the most notorious insect living in holes, the Asian giant hornet. Thankfully they hibernate in the winter. I backtrack and take the southern fork and immediately start losing altitude in a sort of freefall down to another kiretto, the sort of sketchy scrambling that is now becoming a trademark of the Hoshida mountains.

At the bottom of the gap I stare up at a wall of broken ridge directly in front of me, but my eyes spy a way through by scrambling up a slope of sandy scree on the western face. I retake the spur further on, treading carefully to avoid the dizzying drops eastward until I finally breach 200 meters of altitude for the first time today. The angle continues to crescendo until I can go no higher and I stand on the brow of the tongue-twisting ㉗ Mt Shōbugataki (菖蒲が滝山). I strain my ears and can dimly make out the sound of the falls in the valley directly below. 

A metal signpost appears a bit further on, delineating this route as the Ōtani Hiking Course, which from my research actually predates the construction of the Hoshida Enchi park. What it must have been like to walk these hills in the days before a touristy suspension bridge and the placement of electrical pylons. At least we can still cherish what remains – a pristine forest devoid of cedar plantations. The path here seems better traveled, possibly due to whoever created the Ōtani trail. The undulating bumps are a pleasure to traverse and I quicken the pace knowing that just one more knob remains on the itinerary. And here it comes, the glorious ㉘ Shiramine (白峯) and the wonderful addition of a hand-crafted seat bolted to the remnants of a wilted tree stump.

It is just a few steps further along to drop out of the ‘forbidden’ zone and back under the ropes to reach the junction below Koban-no-mine in Chapter 1 of the tale. I rest here in familiar territory and descend down the track back to the Myoken neighborhood. Before I reach civilization, I make one last side trip through the ramshackle temple complex of Eitokuji buttressed between two steep valley walls. The path through the labyrinth follows a small stream, past a series of Buddhist scriptures etched into tablets until dead-ending at a cliff face and the modest Shōbugataki falls. A changing room adjacent to the chute is a testament to the esoteric rituals taking place under the waterfalls. Intel about this sanctuary is scarce, and with no one in the vicinity to fill in the holes, the origins and affiliations of this temple will remain a mystery.

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