Travel Tuesdays - Shiromaru Dam In Western Tokyo P2

I left off Tuesday at the side of the Tamagawa river taking a coffee break looking up at a hotel perched on top of a cliff. Now the hiking began. While there are ton of hiking trails through these mountains they are not your casual stroll as you will see.

Moving on I couldn't get over the color of the water. Maybe it was the contrast to the trees and surrounding rock, but it hypnotized me for a bit.

After about 5 minutes the dam came into view. I was almost there.

In true Japanese fashion though, no pain, no gain.

Thankfully when you get to the top of the stairs there is a rest area. I took another short break here to catch my breath, believe me those stairs were not as easy as they looked, especially after hiking for a while.

Resting actually gave me a chance to appreciate the forest around me. I had been concentrating on the river and surround rock while somewhat ignoring the forest.

A side note about these trees, they are cedar trees. After WWII Japan had a building boom and needed wood. They cut down a lot of oak, maple and other species and replaced the them with cedar trees. Cedar trees grow fast and straight so it was a good species to replant for future use. What has ended up happening though is every year when those cedars release their pollen it turns Tokyo into an allergic mess. Many residents' immune systems go into overdrive from the pollen that covers the city, literally covers it. Our balconies become covered in yellow pollen dust. It's a nightmare and no one knows what to do about. Many of my friends suffer hellishly for several weeks. So while they look beautiful, they are indeed a curse, a man made one.

Arriving at the dam, I wasn't able to get any good photos of the dam itself because of the trail and overhanging trees. The picture above is looking back at the dam and happens to be taken from the just above the submerged Shiromaru mine. The trail can't be seen but hugs the right side of the dam. Every couple of years the damn is drained to accommodate the new snow melts and/or maintenance. During that period it is possible to collect, but I believe you need to come with an accredited group like a University or rock collecting club. The area is only the fourth location on Earth that produces benitoite. Even then the crystals are tiny and need the aid of a short wave UV light to find them. Still, it would be awesome for any collector to have a specimen from this location. So next time they drain it I will be going to collect with some local Japanese.

source

The locality produces manganese many other minerals including a very rare one on my list, Tokyoite. I would post a photo but they are all copyrighted...

I believe this is the tributary that leads down to the cut shown above as well as the mine.

And here are several shot of the lake, including a kayak rental spot.

I was surprised to see a few people kayaking & an American and Japanese guy paddle boarding in the middle of December!

The path I was on took maybe 5-10 minutes to walk the length of the lake. Then I headed to the station to take a train east 2 stops to go rock hunting where there was much more river rock. One last look back before moving on.

When I got to Shiromaru station I noticed a disturbing sign that would haunt me later in the day. Beware of bears!

I had no idea there were still bears down here in Tokyo. Way up north in my wife's hometown there are bears in the mountains and infect last year killed 2 people, but down here seems kinda crazy with all the people constantly in the mountains.

After arriving in I grabbed a bite to eat and headed down to the riverbank. I walked along the river in a zone crisscrossing, looking for specimens. I did find a few pieces, copper ore and yet unidentified specimens that I need to run by someone more knowledgeable than me. They aren't pretty as they look like tumbled river rock to the average person.

After hunting for about an hour I jumped back on another hiking trail and headed west back towards Shiromaru again. This turned out to be a somewhat stressful situation. The sun had started getting low in the sky, but according to google maps I was closer to Hatonosu station than Kori, the station I took to this location. So I followed the trail further.

The trail branched off to the left along another stream and I though I would just follow it, cross somewhere and get back to the Tamagawa river. As I started getting deeper into the forest it started getting darker, but I came to a small foot bridge and saw a house on the other side. So I followed the trail up to the house. It didn't look occupied, but looked like someone was living there recently. As I looked around there was nothing else except the trail. No road in which made me wonder about the house. I checked google and I was getting closer to the station, but I didn't look at the satellite imagery. So I kept going.

It was now dark and the path went straight up the mountain side. At this point I remembered that bear sign and started to get really fucking nervous. In the states if I was hiking I would be armed and wouldn't worry, but not here in Japan. Even knives bigger than 9cm are illegal to carry. Not sure about bear guard...

My senses went into overdrive, it was dark and quite as hell. To make things worse the climb was all uphill in front of me. I picked up about a 4lb rock and started power walking up that mountain. It took about 5min to get to the top, but that 5min seemed like an eternity. On top of that I was exhausted and thirsty.

When I go to the top of the mountain there was a small look out rest area and a light. I just found out this is a historical landmark. On the image above the white line is the path and the lookout is in the center. The house I passed is on the bottom, right, with a brown and blue roof.

Anyway, I felt a little relieved and drank the remaining water I had. I could see lights in a town far below so I jumped back onto the trail. This trail had lights leading down it so I felt I was out of danger for the most part, but it was still dense forest with not much around.

A short time later I came to a clearing with some houses and I was out of the woods. Fuck it was a huge relief. Even though I was never more than about 1 mile away from houses the hills made it seem like I was in the middle of nowhere.

I realize now that I didn't take any photos since getting lost. I usually always take pictures so this kinda tells me the state of mind I was in.

When I got back to the station I had to wait 40minutes for the train. Trains do not run often out in the countryside. I had a coffee and reflected on the day while pondering on someone's coffee can collection.

I learned a lesson that day, do a bit of planning before just hiking off on some trail in Japan. Or maybe, sometimes it's better to just turn around and go back rather than push on.

Just past Shiromaru there is a town called Okutama. It's slightly bigger than the surrounding towns and boasts lots of outdoor activities including a large cave system you can tour. Next time I have an itch to get out I'm going to head there. If you are interested in visiting the area all of these towns are on the JR Ome line about 2 hours from Shinjuku and costs $10 one way.

Thanks for reading!