Toshi-yama Hike

Members of H.I.O.C at the peak

 On November 4th 2012. 7 members of the Hokkaido International Outdoor Club did a hike in bad weather to small peak in the back hills of Sapporo city .

We started the day by meeting at the Makomanai Subway station and from there we took a bus out to the hike. From the bus that we got off at, we had to walk about 20 minutes to the trail head  of the hike.

Walking from the bus stop to the trail head

on the way to the trail head

Toshi-yama is a small peak that stands at 826 meters and looks over the city of Sapporo. Toshi-yama has three main starting points and trails that connect and link up together. On this hike we planed to start on the east side and hike all the way over and finish on the west side. This would take around 6 hours.

At the trail head

Our route

The start of the hike

The start of the hike was easy and trail was wet and slippy. The trail slowly worked it way up and was muddy under foot. We made good time to our first stop which was Sankaku-yama.
It took us about an hour and a half to reach this point and the weather wasn't letting up at all and two members decided that it was best for them to turn around and hike out while the rest of us decided to push on to the peak.

Heading to our first stop at Sankaku-yama

At Sankaku-yama

From Sankaku-yama the weather got worst and the wind picked up a lot, it didn't help that the trail from Sankaku-yam to the peak of Toshi-yama was kind of a ridge track so we really felt the winds bite but it wasn't that bad to turn us around so we reach the top of Mt Toshi-yama without any problems. Very wet but No! problem.

Heading from Sankaku-yama to the top of Toshi-yama

The top of Toshi-yama

The top of Toshi-yama

MT Toshi-yama

From the top of Toshi-yama we made our way down by the west trail which got us out of the wind for a while. The trail slowly worked it way down through the trees and connected up with a dirt road that we had to follow out that lead us to a rock quarry where we had to hook back onto the a hiking trail again that worked its way around and through the quarry (this ended up being one of the most unusual and challenging bits of the hike) and we ended up on the road that took us to a main road where we could catch a bus to the Hassanu-minami subway station.

Heading down from the peak

The trail down

The trail out

The end of the hiking trail

The rock quarry

Hitting the road

The walk to the bus stop

On the bus

The whole hike took u s just over six hours. We were all well prepared for the conditions and we all had and carried wet weather gear and extra clothing .
It is always nice to hike in sunny, beautiful weather but it is also just as nice to hike and push yourself in the rain and wind.