Mt. Takao, Tokyo
Let's introduce a trekking inside Tokyo in Japan. It is Mt. Takao, the nearest mountain with many access trails and broad generations from infants till seventies enjoy their own style trekkings. You can choose a modern cable tram and/or sky seat lift, if you were exhausted.
It takes only 1 hour to Takao railway station or parking lot by either public transport or car driving. At 8 AM in mid April, we left home, and arrived at the "Mt. Takao Climbing Poit" as scheduled by using the railway service. We had a plan to have a lunch at the Takao summit, and to have a coffee break at another peak of Shiroyama, and to descend to Sagami man-made Lake, and to return by JR Chuo railway line. It is rather walking than trekking, however, we wanted to enjoy looking flowers like cherry blossoms, azalea, and many voilets on the trail ways because of a timely nice season.
There are main 6 routes to climb up to the top of Mt. Takao. No. 1 route is near to the cable tram and/or sky seat lift line and paved for easy walking by even normal shoes. It takes approx. 1 hour to the Mountain-Side Station and another 30 min. to the summit through the indicated route as a red line. It takes approx. 1.5 hour to get the top of Mt. Shiroyama and 1.5 more hour to descend down to Sagami Lake. The nice trekking trail is set up from Shiroyama to Mt. Jinba via Mt. Kagenobu, it is named as "Kanto Friendly Route".
We took No. 3 valley route merging to No. 1 route at the Mountain-Side Station. And after a lunch at the top, we enjoyed trekking to reach Mt. Shiroyama by the trail named as "1,000 Cherry Tree Road". We could find many mountain cherry blossoms in bloom, pink azalea flowers and many tiny violets under the foot side. The Takao is famous for one of natural violet prolific areas, and it is said that at least 30 species of violtes are there.
We arrived at the Mt. Shiroyama top after 2 hour trekking, taking a pause on the way. This area is less crowded than Mt. Takao, and is comfortable relaxing area , being more spacy with benches, tables and chairs. We had a coffee break at the plastic mat sheet on the green field near the magnolia blossom tree in bloom.
We started to descend down to Sagami Lake. This route used to be main passage for hiking and jogging, however, we could find less trekkers on the way, thinking that it might be less attractive due to not good view except for Sagami Lake comparing with nealy set-up "kanto Friendly Route". We were cautious for walking due to slippery trailways with rocks and pebbles. It was not enjoyable to walk for 30 min. along the normal traffic road to the railway station after descending to the residential city area.
Necessary time span is approx. 1.5 hour from the railway station till the Takao summit, 2 more hours to Mt. Shiroyama, and another 2 hours to Sagamiko railway station. It took 6 hours in total, including a lunch break. It is recommended to take trekking shoes, considering slippery descending trails with pebbles.