The decision on this route is not whether you are fit enough, it is where you turn around if the day runs long. The traverse from Takaosanguchi to the white horse on Mt. Jinba covers about eighteen kilometres with twelve hundred metres of climbing, and it starts at the edge of Tokyo, which buys you crowds in the first hour and silence after the second. I have walked it in six and a half hours moving, and in nine with lunch and two weather stops.
Getting there
Takaosanguchi station is the one you want, not Takao. The Keio line runs from Shinjuku in about fifty minutes on the limited express, and the trail begins a few minutes from the platform instead of down a road. Coming from the east of Tokyo, the JR Chuo line to Takao and one stop across on the Keio works too, at the cost of ten extra minutes and a transfer.
Plan the exit like this and the first hour stays out of the queue. Three steps cover it.
- Leave Shinjuku by seven thirty at the latest. The toilets and the shop by the station exit are the last easy ones on the route.
- Cross at Myohon bridge and take trail six, the riverside path, rather than the crowded trail one that climbs from the cable car station.
- Be on the summit of Mt. Takao, five hundred and ninety nine metres, by nine o clock, ahead of the ropeway crowd.
When to go
The window is set by daylight first and crowds second. In November the ridges are full and the parking lots fuller, so a weekday start is the difference between a walk and a queue. Summer needs the same early start for another reason: the grassy sections above Kagenobu carry no shade, and the humidity climbing out of the valley is worse than the temperature suggests. Winter is the best season on this line if you carry traction, because the ridge dries fast and the views to Fuji open after a cold night.
Check the teahouse days before you rely on them. The small counters on Kobotoke-shiroyama and Kagenobu run reliably at weekends and patchily midweek, so the plan has to survive without them.
The route in order
The profile is a sawtooth rather than one climb, so the work arrives in four pieces instead of one long pull. They come in this order.
- Riverside trail six from the bridge to the summit: about six kilometres and ninety minutes, mostly flat with a stair finish.
- Over the top and along the ridge to Kobotoke-shiroyama at six hundred and seventy metres: sixty minutes, with one short descent in the middle.
- Down to Kobotoke pass on the old highway, then the steep pull to Kagenobu at seven hundred and twenty seven metres: another hour, and the hardest forty minutes of the day.
- Myoo pass, then the long grassy rise to Jinba at eight hundred and fifty five metres and the white horse on top: ninety minutes of small ups and downs.
My watch reads close to twelve hundred metres of total ascent across the eighteen kilometres, while the signboards on the ridge quote a little less. Believe the signboards for the descent and your own watch for the climbing, which is roughly how those two figures have behaved for me on every pass around here.
The middle three hours decide the day. Everything after Kagenobu is forward progress on a path you cannot miss, while everything before it can still be shortened by dropping back down to the road at Kobotoke pass. The honest risk therefore sits in the first half rather than the second, and a slow start costs more than a slow finish on this line.
Water, food and the middle of the day
Carry two litres in summer and one in the cold months. There is no water on the ridge itself beyond what the teahouses sell, and on a Tuesday in February the counter at Kagenobu was shut with a handwritten sign I could not read. The nameko mushroom soup at the Kobotoke shop is the standard lunch and worth the stop when it is open. Otherwise eat on the bench at Kagenobu, which has the widest view of the day and the only flat ground that is not also a junction.
Getting back
From the white horse the options are short. The Ichinoo ridge drops to Fujino station in about an hour on a wide path, and trains on the Chuo line run roughly every thirty minutes toward Shinjuku, ninety minutes away. The alternative is the bus from the Jinba trailhead down to Fujino in ten minutes, which runs far less often than the timetable in the shelter suggests. I have waited forty minutes for it once and twenty five the next time.
Set the turnaround at Kagenobu, eleven o clock. Standing there by then means you finish in daylight with an hour of margin. Not standing there means dropping to Kobotoke pass and taking the road out, which is a dull walk and a considerably better plan than finishing the ridge in the dark.