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Curious Ordinary's avatar

Absolutely gorgeous photos, thank you for sharing. And I can't wait for Hiroko's book to be released. I must pre-order it too.

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Thank you for reading! Yes, me too! Very much looking forward to it, I know she's been working on it for a few years!

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Gianni Simone's avatar

Beautiful, beautiful photos. Thanks for sharing. I don't know if I could follow you on those trails, though. Getting old...

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

You’re too kind! Thank you! I’m sure there are a few mountains here you’d be able to tackle no problem. There are many which are Satoyama, low-lying close to houses and easily accessible!

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Gianni Simone's avatar

I have to add Yamagata to my travel agenda...

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Oh you really do!

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Hiroko Yoda's avatar

Thank you so much for your recommendation! And I really enjoyed your beautiful photos. I can almost feel the fresh breeze from those mountains! I wish I could go right now!

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Thank you for the insightful article!

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Markus Hauser's avatar

For those who not only want to read an excellent written text, but also want to locate the text spatially, I recommend my map of the Dai-sen https://store.avenza.com/products/dai-sen-da-shan-hiking-map-chugoku-japan-125000-japanwildsorg-map

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Drifting to Japan's avatar

I love rural Japan. It's really a shame that it's becoming depopulated. It's a great resource that risks disappearing

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

I couldn't agree more. I think we need to scale down logically by perhaps designating areas for development, and then letting the other areas die a natural death. Sakata City has a few 'centres', places that could lay claim to being the economic centre of the city. They have been building brand new buildings, like hotels and even Tohoku's biggest MUJI, but I fear they are too spread out to all be viable in the long term. My idea is to limit the number of these centres in favour of one or two areas that have a greater chance of surviving.

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Francis Turner's avatar

The Daisen post is indeed excellent.

Not too far from Daisen and just across the prefectural/kuni border is another Gassan - Gassantoda Castle 月山富田城.

This was the main castle of the Amako during the Sengokujidai and was, eventually, taken by Mori Motonari after a siege (or maybe more than one? I forget). As well as hiking up down and around Gassan, you can hike up the mountain Mori used during the siege (

Kyoragisan - 京羅木山) and that hike usually goes via the shrine he built to ask for divine assistance.

That Gassan also inspired a sake of the same name

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Woah! Amazing, I haven't had the chance to head out that way yet but I hear great things! Thanks for the comment!

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Francis Turner's avatar

Our mountains aren't as high as Tohoku, but there's a lot of history and myths and almost every other mountain seems to have been a castle...

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

That sounds rather familiar! I have come across many mountain castles in Yamagata, I even made a list of them, although I think there are more than what I have here.

https://timbunting.com/yamagata/castles/

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Francis Turner's avatar

Have you stuck 城跡, 山城 or 要害山 into google maps and seen how many show up? There's about a dozen within a 10km radius circle of where I live in Izumo and I suspect it's the same in Yamagata

Many are extremely over grown and have little or no visible remains other than unnaturally flat bits here and there (and often not much of a path up either).

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Well, I just found a few I didn’t know about!

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Francis Turner's avatar

Interestingly your Hasedo one doesn’t show up when I looked around Yamagata city. Google is strange

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

I haven’t! These are only from the 100 Famous Mountains of Yamagata list. Let me try that :)

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Weird. That one was literally called Shiro-yama, if I’m not mistaken!

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Myles Delfin's avatar

Very awesome photos as always, Tim! Thank you for providing all of us that follow you an escape from the daily grind of life. More power!

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Thank you Myles! You are very welcome!

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Cameron Cayer's avatar

I was planning on hiking Haguro this weekend, but the weather doesn’t look so good :(

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Tim Bunting - Kiwi Yamabushi's avatar

Trust me when I say rainy Haguro is the best! So atmospheric, you won't regret it!

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