Juliken joined me for a sanpo suru in Kamibun up the old michi that Harada san and I tackled a while ago (except this time we were a little more successful and managed to complete the route).  The path eventually meets a road near the top of the mountain and it’s quite busy up there with little plantations and houses and stuff.  Why do you need a footpath when you have a road?  For the same reason you need a vermiform appendix.

After crossing the river section (which bypasses the overgrown section with all the snakes) we rejoin the main path and follow it through the forest.  This path was an important route, a well used route back in the day.  It’s well constructed, the foundations are sound and so the path is well defined and easy to follow.  It has a little cosmetic damage but I can fix that..

After a couple of hundred meters the path turns away from the river and snakes up the side of mountain.  At this point someone had constructed something out of stone.  Not too sure what it is.

The river splits into two streams and there are massive boulders lying around.  See Juliken in the picture below?

Bamboo like this is expensive in Tokyo.

Some buildings close to the top of the path.  Unused.  Rotting storage.

These paths are an important part of the history of Kamibun.  I’m going to be keeping my eye on them.