YakuQuest 1: The Forevergreen

With a weekend of working my school cultural festival and two kickin' Halloween parties (one an all-nighter) behind me, two days of compensatory leave plus a national holiday makes basically a whole week of vacation! No downtime on the menu though, i'm off to the three-day Yakushima transverse.

Yakushima （屋久島）is an island to the south of Kyushu. It's one of the wettest places on Earth and features ancient cedars, fantastic rock formations, and landscapes which inspired the scenery for "Mononoke Hime". It also has Miyanoura-dake　（宮之浦岳）, the highest mountain in the Kyushu area.

My base camp for this trip was the guesthouse Chinryu-An. Though not the cheapest place to stay it's fun and friendly and Chinryu-san and Maya-san have extensive knowledge of Yakushima. Also, the dinners are fabulous and a great chance to talk with the other guests. Chinryu-an is located near Onoaida, the best onsen on Yakushima. It was also very close to my projected trailhead.

My original course was from sea level to the first hut at Yodogou　（淀川山小屋）. However, Chinryu-san informed me that about 6 hours into the hike there's a river crossing that can quickly become impassable with Yakushima's fickle weather.

Instead I started from Yakusugi land. To make myself feel less like I was wussing out, I did the 2.5 hour course in the park. At first I was turned off by how touristy everything was, but it turned out to be a very pleasant hike. Most tourists do the 30 minute course leaving the deeper trails quiet and atmospheric- a good way to spend a half-day. Then it was an easy 8km walk up a road to the trailhead, and a 40 minute hike to the Yodogou hut.


Yodogou yamagoya was about 3/4 full that night, and it was pretty cold. The talk in the hut was that the weather would turn foul the next day, but it dawned lightly overcast. I left at 6am, a little before sunrise.