while doing some japan mountain research recently, i stumbled upon this interesting fact: mt. takao west of tokyo is the world's most popular mountain, with over 2.5 million annual climbers. i suppose that should come as no surprise considering it's one of the closest hiking spots to the world's most populous metropolis, but it was a little surprising to me because it didn't track at all with my own experience. when i went there the other day with my friends on a whim, it was almost abandoned, we very nearly had the mountain to ourselves... perhaps i've accidentally discovered the secret to beating the crowds at mt. takao. join me as i reconstruct my trip to try and figure out how i did it, distilling it down to some Top Takao Tips...

first off, why'd i go to mt. takao? i guess my answer is pretty typical, i wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, especially after comiket compressed what felt like a full year's worth of h/bustle into like six hours. mt. takao was the first option that came to mind, and i'm not ashamed to admit that it's because it was in an anime i watched fairly recently, hibimeshi. i decided to go the monday after comiket, mostly because it seemed like there wasn't going to be much going on in the city, there were signs up at most of the malls in shinjuku informing people that they were going to be closed that day, widespread enough that it couldn't be a coincidence. i did some research online trying to figure out if it was a holiday or something and couldn't turn anything up, shibs had no idea either, and my friends wouldn't believe my crazy mystery closure theories until we went to our local station that day and found the little mall there was closed tooit was a bit funny because just a week before, google maps had been warning us in every “business hours” infobox that “holiday hours may vary”, yet everywhere we looked it seemed to be business as usual. eventually, somebody looked it up and found out it was supposedly “Mountain Day”, a fake holiday the government invented in 2017 to encourage people to Touch Slope or something (maybe they were lobbied by corporate interests like Big Mountain). so, maybe that's my first tip:

1) go on some mystery holiday

now, a lot of people in the "hiking" fandom are these go-getter types that wake up at the crack of dawn, get kitted out in a bunch of expensive gear, load maps of a carefully-researched destination to their gps, pack a backpack with enough supplies to survive the apocalypse, and so on, all in order to do one of those ten minute waterfall hikes where you can almost feel the spray from the parking lot. sometimes i get the feeling like some "hikers" enjoy shopping for gear or the ritual of "getting prepared" more than actually hiking. they probably also log their hike afterwards on some app or website, instead of writing an excessively detailed blog post purporting to be "advice" about it.

obviously i consider all of that to be outrageous overkill, and to stick it to the neurotic preppers i like to go on hikes with about as much forethought and gear as you'd use to go to the convenience store down the street. my inspiration is werner herzog, who writes in his autobiography about multiple occasions on which he randomly sets off on long walks with nothing but the clothes on his back, sleeping in random barns and stuff. there's one time when out of nowhere he decides he's going to climb over a random alpine mountain with no gear or anything, it's even still partially covered in snow, and he makes it over into a remote valley on the other side where he finds a dam with a couple workers living there over the winter who are astonished he made it. that's the kind of spirit i want to bring to my hiking, i want the geared-up guys to look at me passing them on the trail in $20 costco sneakers and no backpack, thinking "how the FUCK did that guy manage to hike a mile almost half uphill without a barrel of water and enough emergency medical supplies to set up a field hospital??"

i started out strong early in the morning with keeping to my laissez-faire underprepared hiking philosophy, by sleeping through it entirely and getting up really late. it wasn't too difficult because some of us had snuck out for some karaoke pretty late the night before. after getting up i was in absolutely no hurry to leave either, leisurely having some coffee, doing some reading, then getting lunch, finally setting out around 2pm with my friends who decided to tag along. we still had a 1.5 hour train commute ahead of us on top of that, unlike the hibimeshi girls who were basically locals (they lived in nearby hachioji), we were coming from the heart of the metropolis. this late departure was much to the chagrin of one of my friends who's an early riser, he's always trying to push morning hikes (back home even 10am departures elicit grumbling from him), and as we were on our way he offered some unconvincing arguments for why it's better to go early, like that it's less crowded. "that's nonsense", i said, "to avoid crowds it's best to go late because everyone else shows up early thinking that's the best way to avoid crowds". i would end up being proven right about that on that day at mt. takao at least, which makes that my next tip:

2) get there exceptionally late

all things considered, the train to mt. takao is pretty convenient, it's the last stop on the keio main line which has its other end at shinjuku, all you've got to do is get to shinjuku and board a keio limited express train. since it's a tourist spot takaosanguchi station looks pretty snazzy, a modern design with lots of tasteful wood, and i made note of an onsen beside the station. from the station it was a quick walk to the funicular station and the trailheads, on one of those walkways between a railway station and tourist spot in japan that sprouts thick with businesses from being fertilized by frequent foot traffic. unlike the hibimeshi girls, i insisted we actually hike up the mountain instead of using the funicular, like i had the right crowd because everyone agreed without much coercing. it must be a relatively unpopular option though because the signposting for the trailheads at the base left a lot to be desired, as if they didn't even bother since everyone was just going to take the funicular up, only using the trails to come down if anything. i stood for a while in front of a giant board bearing a giant map of the mountain that was quite unclear despite (or perhaps because of) its lavish illustrations, eventually giving up and setting down off a path that seemed like it was going the right direction (up).

⊕i swear the steepness of this slope cannot be accurately represented in photos, it was definitely at least twice as steep as it looks heresoon, we were walking up a secluded forest path, exactly the getaway from the crowds and the endless urban sprawl that i'd been seeking. the relaxing forest walk lasted about ten minutes before the incline of the path started increasing at a concerning rate until it reached a brutal, calf-stiffening angle. we did encounter some other hikers, but they were all coming down, even the one kei car that passed by was on its way down. shibs, who had some experience with the mountain as part of his "yama no susume" pilgrimage tour, later told me we'd accidentally found ourselves on probably the worst way up the mountain, it wasn't really a hiking trail at all, it was more of a road for little kei cars resupplying businesses on the mountain. but, the road less travelled is exactly what you want when trying to avoid crowds, so here's my next tip:

3) skip the funicular and hike up the treacherously steep road

there was basically one switchback on the entire road, besides that the trail continued straight up the slope at whatever unforgiving angle was required to make it up. there were points at which i was surprised even those kei cars could make it up the road. the exertion combined with the heat and the humidity lead to profuse sweating, in less than half an hour everyone's shirts were completely soaked. "this is the most soaked in sweat i've ever been in my life" someone declared, though i personally was pretty used to it due to too many unwise impromptu pump it up sessions at random cabs with no fans and while wearing clothes inappropriate for strenous cardio. also thanks to pump it up, i was handling the incline pretty well, pulling pretty far ahead of the group by the end.

the path finally mellowed out around the top funicular station, and i correctly predicted that the hard part was behind us. from there it was a walk in the park, i'm almost positive the mt. takao "climber" count is wildly inflated by wimps who skip most of the mountain using the funicular. things got a little more commercialized too, there were a bunch of little shops and businesses, it did still feel pretty peaceful because most of them were shuttered, perhaps because it was late in the day, or maybe they were observing the mystery holiday. one place that was closed was a monkey park my friend had been excited about ever since seeing it on the map at the base, according to the sign out front we had just missed its opening hours. "this is why we should have left earlier..." early riser friend chimed in from somewhere in the back. honestly i wasn't torn up at all about it because even outside the gates the odor emanating from the monkey park was foul, you would have had to pay me to go in there.

there were a few ways up to the summit from the funicular station, we chose the path that proimised the thrill of a suspension bridge over one that went through a shrine complex. the suspension bridge trail got back into the wild and it felt like we were on a proper hike again, though the suspension bridge itself was a disappointment, probably the tamest one i've ever seen. it wasn't too long before we returned to civilization by reaching the summit, naturally most of it was paved over and there were a bunch of buildings around. in one direction there was a view of the city we'd come from, in the other direction was supposed to be one of the hundred famous views of fuji, unfortunately you could not see fuji or much of anything because the view in that direction was completely obscured by dark rumbling clouds, visibility rapidly diminishing as they approached. that brings us to my final and perhaps most important tip of all:

4) make sure the weather forecast calls for torrential downpour and thunderstorms

in our particular case the weather was completely unexpected, one of the weird things i'm stubborn about is never checking weather forecasts. "if we'd gotten here earlier we could have been done before it rained..." came the refrain from early riser friend as a light sprinkling commenced. everyone else on the mountain immediately ran for shelter like it was raining acid, but we stayed calm and acted like nothing was happening, collectively deciding we didn't really care about getting rained on a little. the reason we didn't care about getting wet is because we were already wet, soaked with sweat from the hike up, so what was a little more moisture on top of that? if anything, being soaked in water is preferable to being soaked in sweat, it's cleaner. so, even as the rain ramped up to monsoon proportions that not even thick foliage could defend against, we made our way down the mountain and let ourselves get completely drenched. surprisingly, it wasn't uncomfortable at all, it was warm enough out that at times i even managed to completely forget i was soaking wet.

⊕i tried to take a picture capturing the vibe...we took the other way down, passing through the shrine complex where various japanese tourists peered out at us from huddling under whatever cover they managed to find when the rain started. i imagine they watched us go by thinking we were madmen, the only other person we saw out in the rain was another foolish foreigner like us. when we got to the funicular station i thought people were going to be lame and insist we take it down, instead everyone was surprisingly open to my suggestion that we go down this sketchy trail (partially a creek thanks to the rain) into the dark forest, the trailhead looking like the mouth of a cave. mostly i think they thought risking it on the trail was preferable to the embarrassment of showing up in front of the ticket counter cashier sopping wet, or leaving behind a little puddle after disembarking from the funicular. despite the early-onset darkness from the thick rain clouds, there was just barely enough light left to navigate the downhill trail without incident, reaching a paved and lamp-posted portion down near a creek just as it became too dark to see the trail. it was kind of a beautiful sight, the lamplight over the dark forested path in the rain, i kept repeating "dude... it's so lo-fi".

following the path, we were eventually spit out on the opposite side of the bottom funicular station from the road we had taken up, thereby completing a loop. from there we made our way to the station and then rolled up at the onsen. i went to the reception desk, theatrically tugged my soaked shirt a bit to let them know i was well aware of my current condition, then opened by commenting "ひどい雨でしたね~".