The Mountain Trail to Tairyuji Temple

 

After leaving Venus Bridge, I headed north further into the mountains towards Tairyuji Temple, 

Day 4 of my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, and its the first time I have left the urban environment.

The Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage is a fairly modern one, being set up in the late 20th century, therefore there are no long established walking routes, although some individual temple, like Tairyuji, are loicated in the mountains and so have always had mountain path routes to reach them.

It is late December, 2017, and while the snow and really cold weather has yet to arrive, Autumn is over and the trees are bare of leaves.

One of the things this means is that the woodland is light .... I suspect in the summer it is dark and shady...

It seems to be a popular walking and jogging trail as I pass several people...

Shojo Ike, a fairly large pond along the trail.

The trail connects with a small mountain road and there is even a cafe-restaurant along the way.

Mountain paths to temples have many statues along the way....

The path brings me to the flight of steps leading up to the Niomon.

The previous post in this series on day of my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage was on the Venus Bridge.