Japan Trip 2023 - Day 5 (Fushimi Inari Taisha) Part 1
I ended up not sleeping well throughout the night and got up with my alarm feeling tired, partially because of the hotel environment. I didn't really like how many gaijin were there making noise throughout the night. I went down at slightly before 8 for breakfast as the sign said that the congestion times were most likely 7-8 AM.
That ended up being the first big mistake of the day. There was a large crowd, though I suppose being able to find a seat did mean it wasn't fully congested. It was a Western-style buffet breakfast and didn't really taste that good either, except for the milk and minestrone soup. I didn't bother with pictures, and rushed to finish as soon as possible so I could get out of there to rest a bit before heading out at about 9:15 AM.
I reached Fushimi Inari Taisha (hereafter referred to Mt. Inari for reasons that will become apparent) by about 9:40 AM latest, and began to see where to go and what to do. One of the main highlights would be tossing the coin into the prayer box before making a prayer, but by the time I found it there were not only a lot of people there, but once again I had run out of ￥100 coins, so I decided to return later once I had bought stuff off the tourist traps uphill and obtained some change.
There were huge crowds my gawd, both of the international kind and the school trip kind. I suppose the timing was just bad since it was still spring and the time when schools around Japan made their trips to Kyoto. If I had come during the sakura season (it was almost over when I got there) or Golden Week (it was the week after I left Japan) it'd be unimaginably worse. I started climbing amidst the sea of humans, trying not to bump into people and hoping for a way out of the masses. I actually took 3 short videos of the squeeze but decided to just save 1, and you can view it here.
Now here was where I made my 2nd big mistake of the day. I saw the torii gates heading downward at one point and got confused. I thought they were supposed to keep going up to a fork in the road where I could then take another path upwards to the mountain peak. There was, however, a very small side path of gravel that seemed to go upward branching off from the main route, and a gaijin made his way up the path, with a sign that said there was some shrine there too, so I decided, why not? Maybe this was the correct way, since it looked to me at the time that it was the only way up. The picture on the right above is a picture of the small shrine that was further down the path when you follow it.
Climbing on the path at first seemed like a really good decision. The number of people immediately dropped drastically to almost none, and here's a video I took of the initial part of the path showing its lack of popularity. There were no torii gates here, only small shrines, and I suppose that should have been a red flag in and of itself. I liked the scenery though as well as the lack of people, and I don't think I've climbed a mountain (or anything that could even be remotely called a proper hill) for decades, so I was enjoying the trek honestly.
The above pictures show part of the path after I left the small shrine, the number of people eventually dwindled to nothing, leaving me alone on what I could only call a mountain trail, though it wasn't anything dangerous or difficult. Here's a short video of some part I passed showing what I guessed to be bamboo at around 10 AM.
It was truly like a mountain trail though, with slippery muddy slopes and steep stairs, which accounted for the lack of people around. That did however make it better for me, the serenity of it all was calming after the huge crowds, but by now I knew it was truly not the main path.
I reached a midway point of sorts I suppose, where I actually saw cats! There were some buildings that people obviously lived in, and some cars. There was an old man and I asked him politely about the way up to the mountain top, and he pointed me in the right direction, saying it was about another 20 more minutes of climbing.
I persisted onward despite the revelation that I was not on the main path and came onto a rather steep and dangerous flight of stairs, where one wrong step would definitely end up in an injury in a part of the mountain no one was in, so I was very careful here. Even so, I made good progress in terms of time, but I had to rest a few times because it was such a steep climb and I was truly huffing hard by the end of it.
These two pictures are of the same flight of stairs that I had to climb while panting really hard in the process. I paused in the middle to take a picture of the way I had come and the way I still had to climb. The pictures don't show the winding steep stairs that I had already taken up to this point, and the continuing climb upwards.
The guy had said 20 minutes, but when I finally reached what I could only guess was the side entry to one of the main paths going up to the top, I was like, "No man, 20 minutes is for you folks accustomed to the climb, damn that was really tough for me." I believe I took about 25 minutes but I couldn't be sure at the time.
The main path of course took me to the top, but wow what a climb. It was definitely quite the experience for sure, and I was messaging my friends throughout wondering where it had all gone wrong, but hey I got to experience a different side of Mt. Inari, and quite frankly it wasn't half as bad as I would have people imagine it was at the time. At least I skipped the crowds. Here's a video I took around 10:39 AM after exiting the side path. I reached the peak not long after this video.
A map drawn on the whiteboard at the peak showing the actual main routes, two of them, forming a loop you were supposed to go counter-clockwise or clockwise in. I didn't follow either route on the way up or down.
I rested for a while at the top and had a look around. There was a shrine up there but I ended up not praying at it. I did pay respects with a bow at a lot of mini shrines on the way up, there were tons of them off the beaten path. I didn't take pictures as it would be disrespectful, and most of them were of the same types of statues anyway.
I believe this was where I exited the side path onto the main path at last. It was a treacherous trek indeed, but I did take it as a good experience for the future. I was careful throughout not to make a slip since it did mean I would have no one coming to assist me should something happen.
I started descending and 10 minutes later came upon a shop that was selling some matcha ice-cream wafer. It was nice to have a cold snack after the harsh climb I undertook, and once again I sat here a short while enjoying the wafer and taking a break. Here's a video I took as I started my descent around 10:50 AM.
It was also here that I asked the shopkeeper about the routes, and he brought out a map showing that there were only 2, meaning I had truly taken a side path. I believe the side path was only for mountain hikers or locals, and therefore was unused most of the time. That meant I had strayed off the main path, which was already obvious anyway, GFDI. I thanked him for the info and continued my descent.
Continued in Part 2
