Looking up the Omote Ridge on the way up Mt Tonodake
Mt Tonodake is a pretty popular peak, and with good reason – it’s only an hour or so from Tokyo and Yokohama, it has a long but technically easy ridge ascent, some amazing views and good huts along the route for ramen, beer, coffee or even an overnight stay if the mood takes you. It’ll be busy on a spring or autumn weekend, but under a cover of wintry snow it’s transformed – a bigger, harder day, and far fewer people.
The route starts from Yabitsu Pass (45 minutes bus ride from Hadano station), or when we did it, Minoge Pass (because the bus couldn’t get up the final icy stretch of road), adding around 2 miles and 300m of extra elevation, giving a total for the day of 13 miles and 1,700m of elevation.
It’s a super-easy route to follow: from Yabitsu Pass, head north down the road for a mile or so until a small forest track turns off the road to the left, follow this up the hill for a few hundred yards until a path on the right, signed for Mt Tonodake, heads up through the forest.
A wider section of the Omote Ridge
From there, it’s easy to follow that patch onto and along the ridge, hitting several peaks along the way to Mt Tonodake. The route heads out along a narrow, but never particularly exposed feeling, ridge with lots of up and, if it’s clear, awesome views all the way.
There are a couple of steep, scrambly descents about an hour below the summit of Mt Tonodake, but there are chains in place so it’s easy enough to get down.
The steepest scrambly down-climb, about 1hr below the summit
Stop on the summit of Mt Tonodake for cup noodles, coffee and homemade cake at the hut and then either continue north and grab the slightly higher Mt Tanzawa (1-2hrs round trip from the summit), or like we did, head down through the forest on the easy path towards Okura Bus Stop – again signed, but mostly in Japanese (大倉バス停) – it’s about 7k down from the summit. Once you get to the bus stop, head to Shibusawa Station and jump on the train home.
The summit of Mt Tonodake
Barring the couple of easy down-climbs, it’s not technical at all – but it’s high and steep in places, and will definitely need spikes/crampons in winter. It took us 6hrs in clear autumn conditions and 9hrs in winter, so plan accordingly. A big, physically hard day, and a brilliant low-grade winter day out.