Mt. Jatoge
Since this mountain was the closest to me, I started here. I started at 5:15 in the morning after a 40-minute drive. I was going to take it easy as this was also going to be my warm-up. After about 5 minutes my calves felt tight and fatigued even though I thought I was well rested. I was worried it wouldn't go away but by the second mountain, it was gone. This is a pretty quick mountain, at around 6.5km in total with roughly 550 meters of gain. Although the trail is maintained well enough it could use a few more markers as there are a few forks that lead to some scenic views. Unfamiliar with the trail I went on two of these. Going down this mountain was incredibly fun. There are lots of roots and rocks making it slightly technical, but since the grade is mild it is very runnable.
Mt. Okawairi
It is possible to use the trailhead right across the road of Mt. Jatoge but I think the trailhead north allows for a quicker route even with the extra driving so I used that trailhead. The trail starts at a closed-down ski slope. You can't access the parking lot so I had to park at the end of the road and head towards the ski slope from there. From the end of the first parking lot it's a 700meter climb towards another ridgeline, from there you will go down and do one more climb before reaching the peak of Okawairi. This trail is a similar distance and elevation gain to Mt. Ena but this trail allows you to get in a nice rhythm allowing for a fast pace since there are not too many places that require large steps. Once I got to the bamboo grass-covered summit I quickly took in the views and headed down.
Mt. Amikake
The third mountain, Mt. Amikake was the least impressive of them all. It's a simple hike but I had trouble finding the trail. I preloaded the course onto my Garmin but the directions were off and I was also following signs for the trail but I was led to a dead end. I had to pull out a map to find the trailhead. So I got off to a slow start. The nice thing about Mt. Amikake was it was completely covered in trees so it was cool compared to the road to get there. However, since this trail is completely covered there were almost no good views along the entire thing.
Mt. Ena
The most challenging single mountain of the seven is if you don't combine the last two as I did. I was excited to do this mountain since it's one of the 100 famous mountains of Japan. You start at the parking lot and have to go up a road for about 2 kilometers until you get to a river crossing. The mountain was heavily covered with almost no views. Lots of big steps are required to climb. When I got to the top I was disappointed because there was no view. I tried to run down like I have done for the rest of the mountains before but those big steps, especially towards the end, don't allow you to run so it took some time to get down. The last km of the mountain was particularly tough.
Mt. Takadoya
This was the only mountain of the seven I have climbed before except that I have climbed it from a different side so only the top was familiar. This was mentally the toughest mountain to climb. There was a point where I had to make getting to the next tree a goal for 10-15 minutes to mentally get through it. This helped a lot. When I get like this, it is usually because my nutrition is too low so I made sure to eat more.
Mt. Minamisawa
By the time I got to the trailhead here, I was feeling much better after eating more. I felt like I was moving fast but looking back at my times it seemed very average. The top of this mountain is also covered in beautiful bamboo grass fields. Running low on daylight I quickly continued towards Fujimidai Kougen, the last summit.
Fujimidai Kougen
I was still feeling good both physically and mentally by the time I go to this peak. The trail winding through the bamboo grass was amazing and the view from the top down onto the nearby citing was beautiful. I stayed at the top for a few minutes and watched the sunset completely descend behind the mountains. I pulled out my headlamp and was ready to finish up. At this point, I wasn't eating as much as I should have again and after I passed Mt. Minamisawa again I was starting to feel low in energy and every uneven surface was sending pain from my feet, all the way up to my quads.
At the end of all seven of these mountains, I had done about 60km and a little more than 5000m of elevation gain and loss. The moving time was 13 hours and 49 minutes and the total time was 16 hours and 15 minutes that I used to drive to get to the next trailhead.
Gear:
Salomon Agile 12
Black Diamond Distance Flz Z-Poles 125
Black Diamond Spot 400
Salomon 500mk Soft Flask x4 (one with a straw)
Garmin Fenix 6 Pro
Buff
Phone
Earphones