Mount Misen (Miyajima) – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

After spending the morning, or what was available to me of it, in the lowland near Miyajima’s pier, I spent the afternoon at the top of its primary mountain, Mount Misen.

Heading to the Summit of Mount Misen

You can walk all the way to the summit from the base of Mount Misen. There are a few hiking trails between the bottom and the top. But you don’t have to. There’s a ropeway (mountain gondola), the Miyamima Ropeway, that can take you much of the way up.

There’s a bit of a walk to get to the lower station of the ropeway from the seaside shrines, shops, and restaurants. But it’s not a long distance.

After walking a few minutes of the way, there’s a sign, the English of which says, “10 MIN. WALK (7 IF RUN A LITTLE!) TO ROPEWAY STN.”

I remember seeing that sign when I was there seven years ago. Then, if I remember correctly, I probably took closer to seven than to ten minutes. This time, I spent time enjoying the beautiful, verdant scenery along the way. As a result, I probably spent considerably more than ten minutes on the walk this time.

I would like to attribute my slowing down to better enjoy where I am, rather than always rushing to get where I’m not, to the wisdom that comes with age. I’d like to attribute it to that, but the truth is, it probably has more to do with the decrepitude that comes with age slowing me down.

Speaking of that scenery, it was filled with trees, many exhibiting splendid fall foliage, a river or two, some quaint, classic Japanese pedestrian bridges, and a pond or two, not to mention a few members of Miyajima’s deer population.

On the walk to the Mount Misen ropeway, I stopped by a pond. I saw two species in it.

Some colourful carp, also known as koi, swam in the pond. And a deer stood in it. The deer wasn’t antagonizing the fish in any way. It largely ignored them. The deer occasionally preened itself, but it mostly just stood there, focusing on its breath and living in the moment. Another deer was standing on the edge of the small pond.

Continuing on, I came to, not the lower station of the Mount Misen ropeway, but rather the long line to buy a ticket and, eventually, ride the ropeway. It probably took me about half an hour to get on.

I’ve been saying “ropeway,” singular, but it’s two ropeways. The lower one takes about ten minutes.

It’s of the sort where there’s a continuous stream of gondolas spaced, maybe, I’m guessing here, 15 seconds apart. On the lower ropeway, the gondolas had a maximum capacity of six people. They all sat on two benches that faced each other. Three people sat on each bench, thus, totalling six people. There’s no need to thank me for doing the arithmetic for you. That’s what I’m here for.

After getting off that ropeway, I had to walk up a set of stairs to get to another one that took me the rest of the way up. That was all that was at that level, just a transfer station.

The second ropeway was different. Following a tradition I established at Mount Shosa in Himeji, which had a similar ropeway, I’m going to call the cabins of this ropeway cabs, not gondolas. A sign said they hold a maximum capacity of thirty people. I think they crammed at least that many in when I was on it.

There are only a couple of short benches on the side of the cab. Everyone else has to stand and suck in their gut so there’s room for everyone.

And, like the Mount Shosha ropeway, there are only two cabs on the whole ropeway. One goes up, while the other goes down. Fortunately, the ride on the upper ropeway lasts only four minutes.

Mount Misen Summit

And then you’re there. At the summit of Mount Misen. But you’re not.

The ropeway goes up to a peak on a ridge, but not all the way to the summit of Mount Misen. In fact, even just to get to that peak from the ropeway station, you have to walk a short bit uphill.

There’s an observation area up there. The view of the other lushly green smaller islands dotting the sea near Miyajima, the dramatic mountains, and Hiroshima across the way is astounding.

And, from there, you can also see the summit of Mount Mishen. It’s higher up and across a substantial dip in the ridge. But don’t worry, there’s a path to the summit.

I followed the path because, after coming all this way, how could I not?

Because of that dip in the ridge, I had to walk down a fair piece before I could start walking up again to get to the summit.

Most of the trail is quite civilized. There are stairs where stairs are needed for safety’s sake. But some of those steps are, I’ll be diplomatic and say, rugged. I did fear for my ability to remain upright a few times. And there were a couple of places where my acrophobia kicked in mildly. But it wasn’t too bad.

I did some huffing and puffing, but I made it.

Before getting all the way to the summit, there’s a small plateau with two duelling small shrines facing each other across the plateau.

There are also some benches on the plateau. I’m enough of a he-man that I didn’t need the benches after hiking that high — oh, no; not me — but, I figured, whoever put the benches there might have been offended if I didn’t make use of them. So, I sat for a spell.

Then I pushed on for the rest of the walk up to the summit. I passed another couple of small shrines on the way up. And then, there I was. For real this time. At the summit of Mount Misen.

At the Mound Misen summit, there’s a three-level observation deck. The ground level is just the entrance to the stairs up and … Oops. I’ve got to amend that. It’s a four-level building. There are washrooms below ground level.

The second level has open sides and some benches in the centre.

The top level is only for standing, oohing, and ahhing. The views are spectacular. It offers the same scenery as I mentioned at the observation area near the top station of the ropeway, except there’s more of it.

The deck is at the very summit. And all the way around the platform, there’s no roof, so no need for supporting pillars, and just a low wall to prevent falls, so the view is not obstructed in any direction.

And, of course, being the summit, it’s higher.

It’s simply amazing. I took videos from each of the four corners of the top observation deck. They’re in a playlist viewable immediately below.

And then it was time to start heading back. When I went to the summit of Mound Misen seven years ago, I took the ropeway up, but then walked down one of the trails. I seem to remember the walk being gorgeous, if a little frightening for a person with a few neuroses, including acrophobia.

This time, I bought a round ticket for the ropeway, but I thought I might waste the return fare and walk down, depending on how I felt at the top. A one-way ticket costs ¥1000. A return ticket costs ¥1,800. So I’d be wasting ¥800 if I walked down, but that’s less than $8.00 CDN, which is much less than a rounding error in the costs of this trip.

Nevertheless, when it was time to head back, it was getting late in the day. There’s no electric light on the trails, and it gets dark around 5:00 p.m. this time of year. It’s probably dark even earlier in the forest on the side of the mountain, where the trees block the sun.

There’s that and the fact that I’m getting older all the time. The fact that I did it seven years ago doesn’t mean I can do it now.

So, I took the ropeway down.

Back at Itsukushima Jinja’s O-torii

You might remember from this morning’s post that I said that Itsukushima Jinja’s O-torii looks like it’s floating in the sea at high tide. It was closer to low tide when I got there on my way back to the ferry.

I was able to walk a fair piece out to the O-torri.

It wasn’t the nadir of the tide. I remember walking out to the O-torii and beyond when I was there seven years ago at low tide. That was also on my way back to the ferry. I don’t think I’m misremembering about that.

When I was out on the sand today, the tide was centimetring back in. (Centimetring doesn’t quite work for a metric substitute for inching, does it?) So I didn’t spend much time out there. But it provides a different perspective on Itsukushima Jinja’s O-torri.

It was a great day on Miyamima Island, and up its Mount Misen, but it was time to catch the ferry and head back.