2015-09-23 皇海山

Long trail, probably one of the longest to reach Sukaisan.
From the parking lot, it starts by an old forest road for more than 1 hour, the trail is partly obliterated by massive rock falls and high grass also make it harder to follow than a normal hiking trail.

After reaching almost vertical rock faces on both sides the trail disappear and one is naturally drawn to walk on the river bed. First very wide and mainly dry it narrows down to about 5 meters wide. The stream is quite powerful and rather cold at this time of the year, fortunately there are no waterfalls to climb and only 1 spot required us to pass on the side in order to avoid swimming. The most technical part was passing the dam on the right bank.

We climb up Nigori stream once hitting the bifurcation and exit Matsukisawa. After a few hundred meters we hit a 4m waterfall, it looked easy but midway I realized there were only slippery holds so I gave up and we passed it on the side. We definitely exited the stream and then went straight up the sheer slope of Momiji ridge. Most of the time we were walking on all fours, grabbing at trees or roots whenever possible and trying to avoid dislodging loose stone.

After the steep section, we entered a field of sasa grass, with no trail, there was no difficulty there. Later on we found a trail with tapes on trees and started the ascent to the summit, that trail is not on the map and it is very easy to lose. Basically we aimed at the summit and went almost straight up in a thick wooded slope. At the end there was a few openings in the trees and we could see all the Nikko mountains.

We reached Sukai-san and from there connected with the normal hiking trail, also met the first human beings of the day (in the end we met more deers than hikers). The descent to the pass between Sukai and Nokogiri is is thick forest, not interesting at all. From the pass to Nokogiri it's much better, better views and steep rocky stretches. It becomes even more technical all the way to Yakushidake, yet the technical section is very brief. Better not go there if the rocks are wet though.

From Yakushidake to Koshinsan, it's not really fascinating. A few hundred meters later we encountered huge rock formations, overhanging with natural arches and massive boulders embedded between rock faces. It looked impressive and I wondered if that could be climbable. After that we ended up walking on the road for about 45 minutes and called a taxi when we reached the first onsen, this way we could shorten the road section by more than 2 hours.

Overall, a very interesting route, requiring route finding and sawanobori skills on top of good fitness.