Today’s hike was shorter, and while graded a 4 (out of 5), the guide books suggested that it was fairly benign, at least compared to the other 3 trekking days! I decided to go ahead the hike the day; Karen chose to take a boat down the river to Shingu (as the wealthy did the pilgrimage back in the day, as the poor folk walked)! We both set off on the same bus at 9AM and I was on the trail by 9:15AM.
It was a beautiful day, but hot, even in the shade that the many trees offered. I was also taking today’s hike at a fast pace intentionally — working on my interval training. (Ever since I read about the study that proved that older people who do interval training are smarter and don’t suffer as much from memory loss than those that do other types of exercise, I’m convinced that interval training is the anti-aging miracle). At any rate, the trail provided exactly the exercise I was wanting — inclining up from 55m to 455m for the first third, then some lovely flat sections covered in leaves, followed by the part that goes down the hill, back to 60m.
There were many permanent, ancient shrines as well as some that were not that old. I’ve included a photo of the little box/shrine that we had to look for to ensure that we had the stamps in our “kumano passport”. This one was at the end of the hike. At the top there was Hyakken-guru Lookout that gazes upon the “Kumano sanzen roppyaku po”, which loosely translate to “3600 peaks of Kumano”. While not an exact figure, it alludes to the large number of ridges and peaks in Kumano’s sacred mountains. It was a pretty impressive view. The highest mountain in all of the Kii peninsula was Mt. Oto, elevation 1121.8m.
I was cautious as I walked; several people had seen snakes and I know they enjoy sunning themselves, so I viewed every sun spot with suspicion. And truly some (many) of the tree roots which crossed the path resembled snakes from a distance. (Take a look below and tell me you don’t agree!) The book also alluded to slippery rocks on the walk down the other side of mountain, and I was just thinking about how to describe how ubiquitous moss is in covering everything from trees to rocks to shrines when I did indeed slip on one such moss-covered stepping stone. No real damage done. A bit of hurt pride.
I reached Kochugi (in just 3 1/2 hours), and found my way to the accommodation pretty early. The luggage hadn’t yet arrived, but I was able to get into my room and relax a bit until Karen arrived, as well as the luggage. And before the many other guests got here I had the onsen in the room all to myself. There are several groups here in this accommodation — a building that used to be a junior high school — one with Walk Japan, who I had passed on the trail today — they were truly walking! I was happy for the laundry, and the dinner was particularly good.
And that was today.
