I started day 10 of my walk along the Iwami Mandala Kannon Pilgrimage in the mountains of SW Shimane at Akayamatenmangu Shrine. My route will take me roughly south, a little deeper into the mountains. This is an unknown area to me.
For a while, I follow the Masuda River upstream and pass by a small shrine on the hillside.
It's not a big river at this point, so I wondered what the civil engineering was all about...
At first I thought it was tetrapods they were casting, but then I saw they were some kind of tessellate. Not sure what the purpose was, but suspect that down the line even more costly works will have to be done to undo the effect of these works...more profits for concrete and construction companies...
Then a huge rock covered in greenery with numerous little Buddhist statues set inside an overhang.
Nearby a small shrine, and then not far away, a more substantial "hall" with some quite old statues
As usual, I didn't take notes while walking, but now I cannot find such a place on the map...
A clump of banana trees, and then a big surprise: the remains of an industrial installation
Turns out to be a big mine. The Tsumo mining area has been mining copper, zinc, lead, and tungsten since at least 836. During the Edo Period, it was controlled by Iwami Ginzan. One often reads about Japan's "few" natural resources, but they have mined copper, silver, and gold for almost 2,000 years, as well as coal.
During the war, production was increased and Korean slave labour was used. After the war, a huge deposit was discovered, and in the 70s, 200 people were employed here. The mine closed in 1986 as foreign imports were cheaper, the same fate as the coal industry in Japan.
An intriguing sidenote,.... a rare mineral was discovered here with a 1:1 ratio of bismuth atoms to tellurium atoms. This new mineral, Tsumoite, is named after this mine where it was discovered.
Now the area is quiet, and no traffic passed me....
Later, some contemporary mining..... of timber. In the postwar period, the government planted much of Japan with huge tree farms. Foreign-imported wood is much cheaper now, so these huge swaths of monoculture now cause landslides and force bears into the inhabited areas, as well as give a large percentage of the population hay fever. The government is now spending a fortune to try to correct the situation.
I am now getting into the Hikimi area, higher in the mountains and closer to the Hiroshima border.
After climbing over a pass, I am now heading down the Noto River.
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