Okueyama 1643m is a difficult hike in Miyazaki, Kyushu. It's famous for its many chains, ladders and ropes (supposedly over 50) with spectacular views of Kozumidaki, a giant granite rockface. The rockface is an ancient/extinct volcano which had one of the largest ever recorded eruptions in history.
Because of the many climbing sections I would only recomend doing this hike in good/dry weather and once the snow/ice has melted.
⏲︎ Time: 7h30min
✎ Kanji: 大崩山
⚲ Location: Miyazaki
↔ Distance: 10km
✮ Difficulty: Difficult
ᨒ Elevation Gain: 1250m
☀ Dayhike
☉ Hiking Season: May to
November
Access
The location of the mountain is quite remote and it's best to get a rental car. The road to the trailhead is also narrow and curvy and if you're not comfortable with mountain roads it might be a bit scary. There is no official parking lot, only a bit of space next to the road. If you are planning to do this hike on the weekend come early. We decided to stay in the shelter the night before to avoid the parking situation and get an early start.
Trail description
Once you get to the hut you'll have to decide which route to take up the mountain. We decided to go counterclockwise and go up into the forest first. After 15 min you can see the remnants of a bridge on the rocks which is where we crossed. Be careful with the waterlevel, I can see it being quite high if it rains.
Pretty much right after the river crossing the ladders, chains and ropes start. The trail isn't very well marked and even though we were looking for the pink ribbons we went off trail a couple of times. The are also some side trails up the boulders and its hard to tell which path is the actual trail. Yamap was really helpful here when figuring out which way to go.
The forest part is a nice little challenge but the real highlight are the many viewpoints of the large granite face and climbing on the granite boulders. Unique in Japan.
The actual peak is covered by trees and there isn't much of a view so make sure to take every little detour to the viewpoints. Some are harder to access and involve climbing up vertical rocks with a rope.
We took the other route back down and I would definitely recomend doing the loop to get some other viewpoints and some more climbing/rope sections. It took us 7:25h in total but the estimate is around 10h, so keep that in mind.
Accomodation
There is an unmanned shelter about 20min into the hike next to the river. Its quite big (30-40 people) and there is a outhouse behind it. It also has a watersource, but its not drinking water so bring a filter.
The cost is 300Y.
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