Laying Down in the Mountains. Day 19 Shikoku Ohenro Pilgrimage

 

November 30th, 2011, and after visiting the bangai temple of Daizenji in Susaki, the route heads along the coast for a while.

It soon cuts inland and heads into the mountains...

From here ther is a choice between two routes over the mountains, the Soemimizu Trail, or the Osaka Trail. I chose the Soemimizu trail, though I cannot remember why. It seems to be the tougher.

At this elevation the colours are still full on....

One of the funky rest stops made and maintained by local people...

Whimsy is always appreciated...

As are big, old, gnarly trees....

This is one of the official henro rest huts, number 31.This one was fairly open but any roof  is welcome when it's raining.

The Soemimizu Trail gets steep in places. My pack was pretty heavy. I didn't carry a tent, but everything else needed for an overnight outdoors, including ample food and water plus a small stove and pot for boiling water. I didn't have a phone, but did carry a laptop so that when I did spend the night in accomodation I could connect....

The pilgrim trail comes to where a new expressway has been constructed. The trail is just across on the other side of the construction. They could easily have constructed a small pedestrian bridge for pilgrims, but instead made a diversion that was a very steep drop followed by a very steep climb. Boy, was I pissed.

The last view of the sea for a while...

Not sure of how high the climb is. Also not really sure of how far I walked each day. I know some people seem to obsess about exactly quantifying such things... I'm not one of them....

Looking down on the construction of one of the few sections of the new expressway that is not in a  tunnel.

In the higher elevations the autumn colours were close to the end... time to start keeping my eye out for a suitable spot to sleep tonight.....

The previous post in the series was on Bangai Temple 5, Daizenji.

If you would like to subscribe by email just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.