Getting to Yakushima requires either flying in from Osaka or Kagoshima, or (and more cheaply) taking a ferry from Kagoshima to Yakushima. We decided to take the train down to Kagoshima using our unlimited passes, stopping in Hiroshima for a day to break up the over 24 hours of train riding that it would require to get there. We stayed in Kagoshima for the night and took an early ferry the next morning so we'd have enough time to hike out to our campsite:
Yakushima is famous for its old trees, many of which have hiking trails leading up to them and individual names. Most of these trails are not particularly short, as enormous trees located close to settlements get cut down. One trail crosses the entire island, up and over the mountains, and takes roughly 3 days but it isn't something you should do until at least April due to the possibility of snow and extreme temperatures in the higher reaches. Since we were traveling in March, that was not a good option. Another possibility is the most common way to the most famous of the trees: a roughly 4-5 hour hike along an old train track most of the way in, and then another hour or two of hiking in rather rough terrain to get to the tree itself. We came up with a less-common combination of trails for a 12-ish hour round-trip hike through two different recommended areas with famous trees not normally incorporated into the same hike, through some woods instead of along a train track, with more hills and rougher terrain. We wanted to see more, and could afford to spend more time on the trail as we were camping in a shelter and did not need to be back to town and a hotel at the end of a day.
The ferry goes to that town down there, and then we took a bus into the mountains to the trailhead.
Yakushima is rainforest, and the guidebook said "It will rain" but it was sunny and clear the whole time.
Lots of moss on stones and trees, tons of streams.
Stumps big enough to stand in.
We started encountering impressive trees quickly.
As we got deeper into the forest, we began encounter very wild wildlife - humans obviously just didn't compute for them, and they're very calm around people but also don't think we have food. Their calm allowed for some fairly spectacular pictures in some cases.
Being a Japanese hiking trail, as mentioned in the last post, there were stairs. Truly prodigious quantities of stairs, especially as we got close to the most famous tree, probably put in because the tens of thousands of people who visit the famous tree every year would really do a number on the terrain if not kept off it on a raised path:
We got to the shelter later than anticipated, due at least partly to stopping to take pictures of wildlife and appreciate the natural beauty, so it was pretty dark as we cooked some oatmeal for dinner and set up our gear in the cement hut near the main attraction:
In the morning we headed back out past some of the famous trees it had been a bit too dark to fully appreciate the day before. The most impressive one, Jomon Sugi, which is somewhere between 2,000 and 7,000 years old (different experts disagree), is right near the camping hut, so we breakfasted just after sunrise at the tree. This tree is massive, over 25 m (82 ft) tall, and 5.2 m (17 ft) in diameter:
We opted for a slightly shorter way out, down and over the train tracks rather than up and down the hills back to the trailhead we started at. We didn't want to be stuck with the last ferry back to Kagoshima, so the shorter path out seemed best. There were some very scary no-guardrail bridges over chasms to cross - didn't take many pictures because it was best to get those over with as quickly as possible - I didn't want to contemplate the situation and then freeze up.
This one is cute and small and has railings and was not scary. Others were longer and only had the board located between the rails and no railings at all, and those were scary.
As a bonus for choosing the different path out, we encountered a troop of monkeys and got some great pictures, including one of a monkey eating cherry blossoms.
We got quite a few pictures of the troupe of monkeys in this area, with a park right next to a large bridge over a stream with some of the largest rocks we've ever seen. Another monkey (or maybe the same one) crossed the very windy bridge towards us, also allowing for good pictures:
The bridge to the end of the trail
While we got to the end of the trail at the worst time for buses (most people opt for the day-long hike, no buses in the middle of the day), we were lucky enough to be able to hitch a ride out with the local park station-minding guy who was just finishing his shift, allowing us to grab some lunch at a bakery and catch the earlier ferry instead of being stuck at the trailhead for 3-4 hours. While it rains there most days of the year, we had perfect weather the entire time and were really glad we decided to go. I highly recommend scrolling through the rest of the pictures on Flickr; we got some really good ones!
In the next blog post, we accidentally visit major tourist attractions on Shikoku.
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