Saturday, April 26, 2008

Tsukuba-san

View from the Nyotai Summit
Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture
April 26, 2008

Katakuri - Erythronium japonicum
Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture
April 26, 2008

Nirinsō - Anenome flaccida
Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture
April 26, 2008

Eizan sumire - Viola eizanensis
Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture
April 26, 2008

Hime miyama sumire - Viola sieboldi ssp. Boissieuana
Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture
April 26, 2008

Trail to Nyotai Summit
Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture
April 26, 2008

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tsukuba's a decent mountain, I could never understand the derision with which it is treated by hyakumeizan aficionados. After all, anything that took Benkei seven tries must have something going for it..

I went up in the middle of a typhoon which made for an interesting (if less than panoramic) climb. Glad to see you got better weather..

MTC said...

Chris -

I had always put off hiking up Tsukuba-san for another day. When the weather service predicted rain for everywhere in the Kanto except Ibaraki, though, I knew that Saturday was the day.

What I liked about best about Tsukuba-san (not knowing anything about the mountain I took the Shirakumobashi Trail up and the Miyukigahara Trail down) was the lack of significant sugi or hinoki plantations--a legacy, I should suppose, of the sacred status of the mountain. The resultant mix of tree cover provides far more niches for other living things to occupy, making the variety of birdsong and wildflowers much, much greater than one finds at most low altitude hikes.

By the way, I am assuming this

http://i-cjw.com/

is yours.

Anonymous said...

You're right, Tsukuba does seem to have avoided much of the ecological disaster that is the sugi/hinoki plantation. Quite possibly the sacred status has something to do with it - Omine-san near Nara is much the same.

http://i-cjw.com/ - yup, that's me.