The Mt. Rokko Traverse 2 : 六甲全山縦走 2

Day 2 of Mt. Rokko all ridges trail started with thousands of steep steps again. 


We started from yesterday’s goal point, Hiyodorigoe Station. Only first short part was nice forest walking and we felt so refreshed after all of the dry low mountain trails and walking through towns yesterday.


From today, the trail was going up in the real mountainous area. But the way it went up was way too steeper than I expected. First mountain, Mt. Kikusui was endless steep steps to go up and then, seriously slippery dangerous down hill with lots of rock walls that I had to use both hands and legs to carefully go down.

Next Mt. Nabebuta was same way. But just like yesterday’s part, there were some nice view points here and there along the trail. 


We stopped by Tairyuji temple, just because it is on the route and it has the same name of my favorite temple in Shikoku 88 pilgrimage. Also, this temple had vending machines, definitely only for save the thirsty hikers, as this point was the first vending machine after Hiyodorigoe station and the whole one line of the drinks in the vending machine was a sports drink. 


Originally, we planed to reach to Rokko cable train today but the trail to the last mountain of the day, Mt. Manisan was….just so agonizing. The first part was named as Thunder slope. it was super steep zig-zag uphill. Then, the later half was called Tengu trail. I guess it was the trail for the practitioners of mountain asceticism to trail. Really rocky that I had to clim with both hands and legs again. The worst thing was, when I thought the hard uphill was over and walk a bit on a flat trail, another uphill with rocks came back again and again. Even more terrible, the trail even went down a bit before some of the uphill parts. It was mentally torturous. 


Finally, we got to the peak of Mt. Mayasan and came to Maya ropeway station. After Mt. Mayasan, the ridgeline trail keeps going on the altitude 600 to 900m level. This ropeway is one of only a couple of ways to go down to Kobe city downtown area. We took the ropeway and then the cable car to go back to the ground level to go back where we stay.