How We Hiked the Mountains of Okutama

Introduction

Winter in Japan is already halfway through, and the cherry blossom forecast has been announced! The Sakura trees are expected to start blooming in March around Tokyo. I’m excited to go hiking again to see the cherry blossoms. Last time, we spotted some Sakura flowers, so let me share the story of our hike in the mountains of Okutama.

^{Cherry Blossoms we found in Okutama}

Hiking Around Hikawa Okutama

We arrived at the Okutama station around eight-thirty in the morning and we started preparing for our hiking. Some of us started eating onigiri, and others started warming up. One thing in common that everyone did was applying sunscreen. A great tip that my friend shared is to make sure you don’t forget to apply sunscreen on your nape too!

^{Okutama Station}

^{Our starting point}

After everyone was done preparing, we started our hike around nine in the morning. One of the first places that we passed through was a bridge and we already saw some flowers blooming. Below the bridge was a river and we saw someone who was fishing there so we looked for a path going down below.

The path going down the river was a little bit steep and must go through there with caution. At the river, there was not much of people there and it would be nice to dip in the river, but we didn't make any arrangement for that, so we crossed out the idea.

^{First bridge that we passed through}

^{A river that I took from the bridge}

After hiking for more than a kilometer, we decided to take a rest. The weather was quite nice, so I didn't have that much of sweat on me. The shade under the trees was also very helpful and made it much cooler and comforting feeling. I lied down on my back and noticed the very long trees. I took many photos of this view, and I selected this one as the best of them all. :)

^{Took this photo after I lied down}

We continued our hike and started seeing some cherry blossoms. One of them was near the public parking lot and I took this distinct white streetlamp standing in front of the blooming trees. In the parking lot, there was also a stone with a message to the future generation which says that it will promote the natural environments in the town of Okutama and make sure people can live healthy and safe.

^{Took a photo of a distinct lamp}

^{Message from a mayor}

From the parking lot, another hike trail points to a mountainous area. We passed many trees and some observation decks without stopping for an hour and a half, and then we reached to the place around Atago shrine. Near there, there was a comfortable place to sit to, so we decided to stop there for a while and prepared for our lunch time.

^{The Atago Shrine}

After many minutes of eating and talking about serious/funny things, we cleaned our trash and kept them inside our bags. We made sure there were no things left behind and started our hike again. Our hike was just short, and we ended earlier than usual. We reached the final part of trail, and I took a photo of the first bridge we crossed from the last bridge that we passed through.

^{First bridge that we crossed}

^{Highlights of the places we hiked}

Afterword

Thank you if you have reached this part. In Okutama, there are many hiking trails that you can choose. I have hiked there twice, and I would love to go back there again for some more. If you want to hike there, please check out the link I have provided below for some recommended hiking trails. That would be all for now and thank you so much! See you next time <3

Link: https://www.alltrails.com/japan/tokyo/okutama-machi

Walking