When we reached the bottom of the steep stairs, we found a pleasant little area with a number of small buildings. One of them had this 'lion'(?) on a corner post.
Inside the building was a row of statues of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. We were surprised to find the fresh flowers, considering that someone had to carry them up into the mountains especially considering that we had climbed for over three hours from the nearest built up area to get here.
I do not know what kind of tree this was but the flowers on it were beautiful, a pale pink. Although we had seen some flowers this was the first tree that was truly in bloom. There was a sign on one of the buildings that indicated that sometime in the relatively recent past there had been a facilities for sleeping and eating here. I could not tell if it had been commercial or run by a temple, but apparently the monks were now doing whatever upkeep (not much from the looks of things) was being done. The buildings holding Buddhist statues were being taken care of but the rest seemed to be slowly returning to nature.
After going even further down hill, we came out of the woods to this marvelous view. The roof that you can see was a building that had tatami mats where hikers could spend the night for free. There was an access road but we had no idea where it came from. You can see a parking lot in front of the building.
A bit further on we had this view. From somewhere around this point we started uphill again, headed toward the highest point on our route - Ippon Sugi (in English
One Cedar Tree)
When we reached the bottom of the steep stairs, we found a pleasant little area with a number of small buildings. One of them had this 'lion'(?) on a corner post.
Inside the building was a row of statues of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. We were surprised to find the fresh flowers, considering that someone had to carry them up into the mountains especially considering that we had climbed for over three hours from the nearest built up area to get here.
I do not know what kind of tree this was but the flowers on it were beautiful, a pale pink. Although we had seen some flowers this was the first tree that was truly in bloom. There was a sign on one of the buildings that indicated that sometime in the relatively recent past there had been a facilities for sleeping and eating here. I could not tell if it had been commercial or run by a temple, but apparently the monks were now doing whatever upkeep (not much from the looks of things) was being done. The buildings holding Buddhist statues were being taken care of but the rest seemed to be slowly returning to nature.
After going even further down hill, we came out of the woods to this marvelous view. The roof that you can see was a building that had tatami mats where hikers could spend the night for free. There was an access road but we had no idea where it came from. You can see a parking lot in front of the building.
A bit further on we had this view. From somewhere around this point we started uphill again, headed toward the highest point on our route - Ippon Sugi (in English One Cedar Tree)
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