Shikoku 88 – Days 19 and 20

Today, day 19, started with a drive up the mountain towards temple 60. It was again a very winding and often one-car-narrow road. It occurred to me, as it had several times, that this driving the O-Henro in a Van, on the „wrong“ side of the road, sitting on the „wrong“ side in the car, and then navigating though the Japanese traffic finding your temples, kombinis and sleeping places, is most likely not for everybody. And then sleeping somewhere in a dark parking lot, near a temple, or like today at a highway roadside station, is also not for everyone. This is my kind of Kungfu, so to speak, with all its complexities, inconveniences, and tricky situations… I like it very much, though. Others prefer hiking, its simplicity compared to the car thing, but then with other inconveniences like walking in the rain, getting tired but needing to reach the hotel, needing to find a place to sleep, often with the need to book it in advance… this is their Kungfu… Also, in favor of my choosing the car thing, is that this way I do not have to carry my 5 kilos of camera gear plus tripod, in addition to all my clothing etc..

So, back to temple 60, a very nice mountain temple, where I spent over an hour hiking around its premises to a small shrine in the forest, and a nice view with a Torii gate.. only it was raining, so not so much of a view.. Then followed temples 61, 62 and 63, all not so remarkable in my eyes. But then, in the afternoon, I reached temple 64, which is very beautiful. Again I finished early today, as I am still well ahead of my planned itinerary… and I don’t need to finish the O-Henro too early. So I went to the Onsen by 3 already, and I am already in bed now at 8 finishing the last thoughts for today…

When yesterday was basically all temples, today there were none. Instead, as the weather forecast was for nice sunshine, I went to climb Ishizuchisan, with almost 2000 meters the highest mountain on Shikoku. The night in the camper was cold (4 degrees), but going to the ropeway base station in the mountains for the first cablecar at 8:40, it was not getting warmer. The top of the mountain at that time was -5. We could see the snow on the trees up there… so starting the hike at the mountain station was at 1300 meters, then up to 1400, and down again to 1300, before the actual climb started up to 1955 meters… and as we expected, most of the climb was with snow or ice on the stones, steps and boards.. so everyone was very careful… I had a hard time with the climb, it was much tougher than Tsurugisan 2 weeks ago. And it was really cold, most of it was in the shadow side of the mountain, but the hard climb meant sweeting a lot… so you could not really loose layers, or the hat… that was too cold with the wet skin… but, hey, I made it, and arrived around 13:30 at the sunlit summit.. Yeah! Resting, looking, some onigiri and a drink, lots of pictures, and then down again, not so exhausting, but one had to be even more careful, as most steps were still covered in snow mixed with ice… Made it to the 4 PM cable car down the mountain… then some kombini dinner, and, you guessed it, Onsen…