Mt. Ōtake (1266 m)

Winged tengu figure on Mt. Nokogiri
Okutama Township, Tokyo Metropolitan District
March 10, 2007

Area represented in the Diet by Inoue Shinji, a 36 year-old former Construction Ministry bureaucrat. LDP, 2 elections to the Diet, Kōno Group.

The second son of a wealthy Tokyo optometrist, Inoue boasts a sterling academic record, including a BA from the Faculty of Law of Tokyo University and a Masters in Land Economics from Cambridge University. Spent a year seconded to the Foreign Ministry's Eurasian Bureau, Eastern Europe Division.

With all his training in land management, I am sure Inoue will figure out a way to accommodate Governor Ishihara Shintarō's brutal but necessary plan to cut down a million pollen spewing cedars and false cypresses in Inoue's district without leaving behind denuded and eroded hillsides like the miserable and depressing clearcut just completed below the tramway to Mitake-san.

Or perhaps not.

It seems that Representative Inoue's vision for his district is:

1) the completion of the unneeded Ken'ō Expressway -yes, the nightmare that has already ruined the view north from Takaozan,

2) a crackdown on visa overstayers,

3) strong measures discouragine shoplifting and crimes by young people,

4) flood control projects (I guess that is why workers are paving the hillside beneath the Mitake historical district)

--all of which will produce a district where "everyone from the children to the elderly can live with peace of mind".

Oh, and try to entice foreign tourists (obviously not those suspected of #2) to come and see the historical and natural sites (such as may survive #1 and #4 above).

Sigh.

Better go and see it while you still can...or hope the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's budget craters sometime soon.

Spring snow on Mt. Nokogiri
Okutama Township, Tokyo Metropolitan District
March 10, 2007

View southward from the summit of Mt. Ōtake
Hinohara Township, Tokyo Metropolitan District
March 10, 2007

Ayahiro Falls in The Rock Garden (Gansekien)
Ōme City, Tokyo Metropolitan District
March 10, 2007

Nanayo Falls
Ōme City, Tokyo Metropolitan District
March 10, 2007

Twelve kilometers; rugged, rocky, narrow and very steep at the beginning but path widens after descent from Mt. Nokogiri. Six hours with a lunch break. Holiday Kaisoku trains leave Shinjuku at 7:44 am and 8:19 am. 1110 yen to Okutama Station; 570 yen for tram down from Mitakezan; 950 yen from Mitake Station back to Shinjuku.