Mount Tsukuba – Most cultural mountain in Japan –

Highest, the symbolic and famous mountain is Mount Fuji. However, this Mount Tsukuba is most cultural mountain in Japan.

“There is Mount Fuji in the west and there is Mount Tsukuba in the east”. From ancient time, people who lived in Kanto region have been saying. We cannot see this mountain from Tokyo, because of many skyscrapers. However, almost 200 years ago, in Edo period, people could see this mountain from the center of Edo. And it was second famous symbol for Edo people.

Mount Tsukuba is not high. But this beloved mountain become the next destination for us to know why this mountain is so famous.

AM 9:45. We were in Tsukuba station to wait the bus. Most simple way to go this mountain from Tokyo is using Tsukuba Express. This train takes almost 45 minutes from Akihabara to Tsukuba station. After the riding this train, there is the shuttle bus. It takes us to the foot of Mount Tsukuba and almost 35 minutes.

Mount Tsukuba is located north west from lake Kasumigaura, Ibaraki. And Tsukuba city surrounded this mountain.

11:00 AM. After riding the shuttle bus, we arrived the foot of Mount Tsukuba. There was tiny visitor building and restroom.

And there was a huge Trii (鳥居) on the road. This is the gate and the line between world of Gods and people. Basically, All of shrine in Japan has this gate.

There was the Trii, it means there is the shrine. We walked along the road and found the shrine called “Mount Tsukuba shrine” (筑波山神社). So this Mount Tsukuba is God itself.

There was beautiful name plate. This shrine was the trailhead so we walked through it.

This shrine had huge and beautiful ginkgo. And Japanese maple (it is called Momiji in Japan.) was turning to red. Autumn was there.

11:30 AM. There was Trii again. And this is the actually start of the trail.

After passing through the Trii, the scenery was changed. There was in the forest and lots of huge and straight tree standed around us.

What a huge and beautiful tree! This was Hinoki tree (ヒノキ).

That tree was really beautiful and amazing, so we took pictures. And behind us, it seemed the steep slope had begun.

There was huge roots and stone on the trail. Really tough trail. People struggled to climb this mountain.

This mountain is too famous, so people recognized as a tourist spot rather than a mountain. They wore normal clothes and ordinary shoes. However, it was wrong. When you want to go to a mountain, you have to wear hiking boots. Because, the sole of hiking boots is hard. It protects your foot from rough and bumpy surface of the trail. If you wear normal shoes, the sole of shoes is too soft, so you feel tired rapidly and sometimes injure.

The scenery in the forest was really beautiful, but we were exhausted. I recognized this mountain has no other mountain. It means there is no gap. So we had to keep climbing.

13:00 PM. After the struggling, we arrived the ridge. There were many stores that sell food and gift.

The view from this ridge was really amazing. we could see the city of Tsukuba and plain of Kanto region.

This mountain had two peaks. First, we decided to climb the left peak called “Nantai-San (男体山)”. It meant “God of the Man”.

This peak was really rocky surface. So we climbed this peak carefully.

13:15 PM. After the climbing, we arrived tiny shrine on the peak.

We took a picture to record our hiking log. This peak was 871 m. The other side of the peak was a little bit higher than this peak. It was 877 m.

The view from the peak was amazing too. I took pictures and videos.

The colorful forest was really good! But I was really exhausted!

The forest turned red color was really beautiful and magnificent.

Not only red, but yellow was around us. Amazing.

When went back to the ridge, we could see the station of the gondola lift. Yes, this mountain has two gondola lifts. So you can go up this mountain easily if you don’t want to walk steep trail.

At the store on the ridge, we ate the lunch. It’s soba noodles. It was hot and delicious!

14:10 PM. After the lunch, we headed to next peak called “Nyotai-San (女体山)”. This meant “the God of woman”.

The ridge was not steep, so we really enjoyed this autumn scenery.

In the middle of the ridge, there was strange rock. It was called “Gama-ishi”, “Gama” means toad. Can you see the shape of a toad?

-ガマの油売り the sales person who sells the oil of the toad-

And this mountain had some funny story about this toad. It was before Edo era, Samurai using the ointment for healing the injury. It was sold well after the war. This ointment was made from the liquid from the toad.

Some dealer have been thinking about how to sell this ointment more. Someday, He met a huge toad at the top of Mount Tsukuba. This toad taught him a mysterious song. After that, he went to Asakusa the one of the famous city in Edo and sang a song in front of crowd to sell the ointment. It became popular. Now it was became traditional culture and called “Gama-no-Aburauri (ガマの油売り)”. It means the sales person who sells the oil of the toad.

Of course, it is not using toad oil in the present day. It is used the Vaseline.

We were under the next peak. There were a lot of tourists who descend from the peak.

14:30 PM. We reached the highest point of this mountain. It was 877 m. The summit was crowded with many of people, so we had no time to set the camera.

We wanted to go to the tip of the rock. But there were a lot of people there, so we carefully moved. Because both sides of the rock were sheer wall and very dangerous.

The view from the rock was really, really amazing. And I could see the cabin of the gondola lift and its pillar in the mountain. What a beautiful scenery.

Looked to west, we could see the peak that we arrived first.

We started to go down the mountain. This side of the trail was really dangerous. There were many boulders. And these stones were so slippy.

Small child and dog struggled to climb this boulder. But they were moving as can as possible. Good job! Keep moving!

We finished most dangerous part of this trail.

Looked back this trail. There was a really nice scenery of nature made of forest and stone.

The sun beam from sunset made this forest glamorous and amazing.

Finally, we found the house. It was the edge of the house and the mountain.

16:20 PM. There was Trii again. We went through it. We entered the world of human.

16:30 PM. We arrived the bus stop and headed to Tsukuba station.

Even it was not high elevation, this mountain was really hard and fun for us. And saw a lot of people in the mountain. This mountain beloved from ancient time to now.

-The culture of Mount Tsukuba-

First appeared of this mountain in history was “Hitachi-No-Kuni-Fudoki (常陸国風土記)”. It was the one of the book that written about history, geology and culture. And it was written in 713.

It this book, some God who walked around the Japan met mount Fuji and asked “Can I stay at your place tonight?” However Mount Fuji said “I’m sorry, I’m busy now,” Mount Fuji refused. This God was really sad, so he said “Snow will fall on you even in Summer. People can’t climb you, so you will lose the friend who eat together. You are alone forever.”

Next time, this God asked the same question to Mount Tsukuba. Even Mount Tsukuba was same busy, but he welcomed this God. This time, the God was really glad to hear it and said “Every time, the people gather and sing, dance, eating with you. And you get abundance forever.”

In ancient of Japan, There was a unique culture called “Utagaki 歌垣”. It was the kind of party and young men and women gather and sing, dance, eating. Finally, they make couples. This is why two peaks of Mount Tsukuba called “God of Man”and “God of Woman”.

Basically, it was held to celebrate the harvest and pray for the next harvest. It seems that this kind of culture is in another country of Asia too.

This was the really interesting story for me. This mountain had a lot of history and culture. And the view from mountaineering, this mountain was not easy. There was a steep slope and tons of slippy boulders. It gave me the satisfaction of climbing.

I love this mountain.

Thank you for reading this story! See you next time!

Tamaki