"Dancing Crane Mountain": Maizuru-yama in Tendo, Yamagata
And Daily Yamabushi Posts for May 29 to June 4, 2026
I climbed Maizuru-yama in Tendo the other day. It was quite literally a walk in the park. I originally intended for this week’s post to be about the experience, but I completely underestimated the sheer amount of stuff to write about.
I would have passed Maizuru-yama at least 50 or so times over the years. It just stands there, a mound of greenery in the middle of Tendo city, reminding me of Shinobu-yama in Fukushima City. As a castle mountain, it is also similar in story to Shiro-yama in neighbouring Yamagata City. Except, this mountain is responsible for Tendo city producing 95% (!) of the Shogi chess pieces in Japan. Can’t say that about many other mountains…
Anyway, here are some photos I took of the mountain, one from April, more from the weekend:

Daily Yamabushi Posts for May 29 to June 4, 2026
Here are my Daily Yamabushi posts for the past week. Get more Daily Yamabushi posts at timbunting.com/daily-yamabushi. Discover more Japan essays and daily insights in the Kiwi Yamabushi Substack Archive, or follow my writing over on Medium.com.







Watch out for bears!