Hiking to Mt. Kintoki in Golden Week.

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On Saturday, we decided to climb Mt. Kintoki in Hakone, right on the border between Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures in Japan.

Mt. Kintoki was the stage for the story of Kintaro, a famous Japanese fairy tale and because of this the hiking course is quite crowded, especially at the top of the mountain.

We first got the train to Gotemba, where you can get an Odakyu bus which goes to Hakone and stops nearly at the top of the mountains encircling Hakone, at the trail head for the Kintoki course.

The most popular course is from Sengokuhara in Hakone, but our bus took us to a slightly less used path, which was still pretty busy.

The path ascends at an pleasant rate, gradually getting steeper and steeper. It takes about 2 hours to get to the top of the mountain.

There's a viewpoint looking over Gotemba about half way up the climb.

Getting steeper near the top

Some lovely views of Hakone

At the summit with Kintaros axe

The summit is 1,212 meters high and has some nice views obscured by the amount of people here. It was really busy, but it was golden week, so its understandable.

After this we walked down the opposite side of the mountain along the path going to Ashigara station. This path is a little longer at about 2 hours and 40 minutes, but much quieter. After eating lunch, catching a glimpse of a bear, and our knees starting to hurt from the constant steep downhill slope, we just about caught the train in time heading for Kozu.

The little cable contraption they use to send food and drink up to the top of the mountain

We got off the train at Yamakita Station, went to the towns nice little hot spring, right next to the station and then had a few drinks and some local food in the Yamakita Bar, also right next to the station. Its a really good place to end a nice hike.

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