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Amagi-san, Japan
Highest point on the Izu peninsula Elevation = 4610 ft., 1405 meters |
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| A Google Earth image looking north at the loop hike to the summit of Amagi-san. The waypoints shown are available as a .gpx file which can be loaded in your GPS receiver. Amagi-san.gpx This hike starts at the Amagi Kogen golf course. There is a large parking area with smelly restrooms and water across from the trailhead. If you are arriving by bus from Ito the bus stops at the golf course entrance. The trailhead is 100 m down the road on your left and is marked by signs. There is a good trail marked by signs all the way around this route. The trail goes up to Banjiro-dake, the first summit, and then goes west along the ridge to the highest peak named Banzaburo-dake. From there you can go back the same way or for a more interesting variation go west to point 45 and go right on an alternate route back. At junction 45 the left fork goes on down the ridge many kilometers. The trail to the summit is 3.8 km (2.3 mi.) The elevation gain is 452 m (1483 ft.) It takes about one hour to the first summit and 1 1/4 hours more to the highest summit. The whole loop took us 4 1/2 hours including a lunch stop at the first peak. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| A view looking west from about point 38. Mt. Banzaburo-dake is the slightly lower middle bump. The ridge is covered in heavy brush, but the trail is cleared out and easy walking. If visibility is good you can see Mt. Fuji from this point. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| A map of the route posted at the summit of Mt. Banzaburo-dake. The yellow line was our route. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other sources of information about the mountain. The book "Hiking in Japan" by Lonely Planet has detailed information on this hike which was very helpful.
Amagi-san is one of Japan's top 100 peaks called The Hyakumeizan. There is a good website with reports on most all of the 100. Amagi-san at Japanhike. |
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| Transportation to the Mountain - If you are coming from Tokyo you can take a Shinkansen from Tokyo station to Atami and then transfer to a local train to get to Ito. From Ito there are five buses a day to the Amagi Kogen Golf Course and six that return. The cost one-way on the bus is 1000 Yen. I have reproduced the bus schedule below. We arrived at 10:45 and there was a long wait until the next bus so we hired a taxi. The drive up was about 45 minutes in the taxi and cost 7000 Yen. On our return we came down in time to get the 1740 bus. If you miss this you can call the taxi which will come up from Ito. The number is: 0557-37-3511. The golf course is in a remote area and I wasn't sure my cell phone would work, but fortunately we were early enough to use the last bus. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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