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Together with some friends we wanted to use this year's Golden week to go to Shikoku in order to climb Mt. Ishizuchi, which is the highest mountain of West Japan. Besides it is one of seven sacred peaks of Japan. There are two possible approaches to this roof of Shikoku, one from South and one from North. As we came from North it was obvious that we took the approach from Saijo Town, which is located at Shikokus northern coast and well known for the most delicious water of Japan. Shikoku is one of the four Japanese main islands. Our way from Saijo (where I use to live and which is not known for delicious water but for delicious Sake) to Saijo led us to Onomichi, which is the starting point of the Shimanami Kaido - the Seto Inland Sea Express Way. This connection between the main islands Honshu and Shikoku was opened in 1999 only, further information can be obtained from the Nishiseto Expressway homepage. After passing the first island unfortunately the weather got quite bad and it started to rain, which was quite inconvenient for enjoying the spectacular view on the bridges and the environment. So all we could do was to proceed to our target for that day, the Ishizuchi Onsen which also offers Japanese style hotel rooms.

The next day welcomed us with much better weather, it was quite cloudy but one could realize that the sun was shining. After a Japanese style breakfast in the Ryokan and another short hop into the Onsen we met the 2nd part of the group who spent the night on a camping place. After a 40 minute drive we arrived at the ropeway station from where our climbing was supposed to start. The first step was easy, by ropeway we made the mark of 1300 meters and realized that the weather is not as good as expected, all we could see were clouds, clouds and clouds. Nevertheless we started to approach the Jojyu shrine which was our next waypoint. From there we started a long descent, before we finally had to climb up again. It was a long and exhausting way through forests along a narrow path, which was improved by ladders from time to time. Many people were on the way to the peak so that sometimes something like a traffic jam occurred. Especially the last slope, which was very steep and narrow was very crowded, nevertheless we could reach the peak and sunlight at around 1:00 pm, hardly expected by Nanda who was rushing up the path like a mountain goat and made the first place that day. It must be mentioned that in earlier times women were not allowed to climb that mountain, as it was one of the most sacred peaks of Shikoku Island. Nowadays these restrictions are lifted, only on the first of July, which is the day of the mountain opening ceremony, women are still not allowed to climb Mt. Ishizuchi.

A very interesting weather phenomenon could be watched on the peak: Humid warm air was coming up the slopes from the south side and in the height of the peak it condensed to clouds which were blown over the edge by the wind. So in the mountains north there was a wall of clouds, while in the south side there was bright sunshine. It was an interesting thing to see such a wall of clouds and a great experience to be in such a height (1982 meters) after such a long time - it is a great mountain but a tough hike to get up there. Whoever is interested in climbing Mt. Ishizuchi I recommend the homepage of Saijo City to obtain some more information.

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