{"id":416,"date":"2009-07-02T00:41:37","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T08:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/?p=416"},"modified":"2019-03-10T03:09:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T11:09:50","slug":"feeling-my-way-around-a-nippon-navigation-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/?p=416","title":{"rendered":"“Feeling” my way around — A Nippon Navigation Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weather Gods showed favor on us last weekend as we\u00a0had a couple of days of no rain and it looked like it was going to hold through most of the weekend.\u00a0 Friday afternoon, Dan and I headed out for some riding in an area\u00a0near\u00a0Zushi.<\/p>\n

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We were enjoying the afternoon as we had plenty of daylight ahead of us.\u00a0 We had time to stop and smell the flowers (so to say)<\/p>\n

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Over the course of ride through the\u00a0 area we came to one of those spots were either going to be\u00a0at the apex of your loop or you are going to jump ship and head for another area near Kamakura and\u00a0extend your loop.\u00a0\u00a0 The fork in the road at this junction was at the top of a pass know as the Asaina-kirodoshi.\u00a0 Kamakura sets on the ocean, but is also surrounded on three sides by mountains.\u00a0They are not tremendously tall, but really steep.\u00a0 For defensive purposes notches, passages and passes call kirodoshi were cut through some of these mountains.\u00a0The Asaina-kiridoshi is\u00a0one of the seven greater kiridoshi leading in and out of Kamakura.\u00a0 It was built in 1241 and is rumored to have been built in a single night.\u00a0\u00a0 We opted to descend the eight century old road down towards Kamakura and see if I could figure out a route\u00a0I followed a local on\u00a0five years ago.<\/p>\n

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After quite a bit snooping around I had to resort to “Umm, it feels this way” tactics.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My “it feels this way” tactic has gotten me and the poor saps with me in trouble on more than a few occasions.\u00a0\u00a0 We were starting to watch our daylight as things can get dark really quick under the foliage of the forest.\u00a0 Just when I was really starting to doubt if I was on the right track, I recognized a trail feature and had a\u00a0“full\u00a0navigational recall” occur.\u00a0 The\u00a0feature\u00a0is a trail junction know as the\u00a0Okirigishi\u00a0juncture, in the Nagoe Kirtoshi pass.\u00a0 (It was too dark in this area to get a photo) This pass was used\u00a0primarily from\u00a01185 to 1333 to connect the Kamakura and Miura areas.\u00a0 It\u00a0was just a\u00a0narrow path back then\u00a0just wide enough for a single\u00a0horse to pass through.\u00a0\u00a0Today it is still narrow and quite a bit on the burly side with some natural stone steeps that require your due diligence to navigate.<\/p>\n

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There are a few spots along the trail were some trees were and underbrush are strategically cutout to provide scenic viewpoints.\u00a0\u00a0 It was amazing to see home much light was actually being obscured when under all the foliage.\u00a0 Below us and in the distance were could see where we were going to be dropping out at.<\/p>\n

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From here to there took a little longer than expected and there were a couple of trail junctions were some thinking had to be done before choosing a direction.\u00a0\u00a0We ended popping out right where I expected (okay hoped is a better word \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 ) to and we still had just a bit of daylight to play with.\u00a0 From here we did some street cruising back to where we started from.\u00a0\u00a0 We did make a pit stop along the way at a\u00a0small mom and pop restaurant that my friend Ken turned me onto during a visit last year.\u00a0 The food here is just awesome with the kind of yumminess that “grandma used to make”.\u00a0 The husband and wife who run the place are in fact\u00a0grandparents and she kindly treats us like one of her grandkids.\u00a0 She sees enough of the local mountain bikers that she keeps a newspaper around so that we can cover up the chairs so we do not\u00a0funk up their chairs.\u00a0 She even helps me out when I screw up my\u00a0Japanese and notices when I use a new phrase.\u00a0\u00a0 It is\u00a0always more than a meal when eat here.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I slept good that night.<\/p>\n

The following day still looked good and by lunch time I had polished off all of the work than needed to be tended to so Dan and I headed out for some more exploration.\u00a0 This would be another area that I had ridden a few times five years ago and but I was\u00a0always just tagging along.\u00a0\u00a0 We did quite a bit of street exploration before finding a route up into the trail system.\u00a0 I had never been this way before to get up into the\u00a0trail system and we went for\u00a0quite sometime before we came to a trail junction that “felt” like I had been here before.\u00a0\u00a0 Riding around over here would be a whole lot easier if I was just learn kangi, hirokana and kitokana.<\/p>\n

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A few trail junctions later and I knew where I was at and where we were going.\u00a0 Takatori has some really cool technical features strewn about on the trails.\u00a0 The section below is gnarly little root fest and it is also the spot where five years ago I cracked by sternum and bruised up a few ribs pretty good.<\/p>\n

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The summit of Mt Takatori is the site of an old stone quarry that has become a\u00a0favorite\u00a0spot for\u00a0area climbers.\u00a0 There\u00a0are at the\u00a0least a dozen such faces\u00a0where folks can come and get thier climb on.<\/p>\n

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The quarry area also has some cool rock features to play on so we did.\u00a0 Here is Dan giving his front tire and fork a workout.\u00a0 Take note that Dan is riding with flat pedals and no shin pads.\u00a0 Dan told this was the first time and months he had gone for a ride without them on.<\/p>\n

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I have a feeling that Dan is going is not going to forget those next ride.<\/p>\n

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After playtime on the summit, we set off on another trail that included a\u00a0bunch of steps to descend, but the cultural payoff is really awesome.\u00a0\u00a0 You are literally just riding along and pop out into a clearing with this in front of you.<\/p>\n

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This carved relief statue is around 30-40 feet high and is simply impressive.\u00a0 If you do not say something along the lines of a\u00a0awesome, wow, or holy crap when you first see this then\u00a0something is wrong with you.\u00a0 Dan was pretty stoked to see this.\u00a0 After this point we continued\u00a0 along the trail that included lots of steep descents and natural log steps that dumps us out at the bottom of Takatori off the north slope.<\/p>\n

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From here we worked our way back up the mountain on a\u00a0easily climbable road.\u00a0 Once back at the peak were retraced our way back to where we started.\u00a0 I have a new to-do list item to go back and explore the numerous trail juctions in the Takatori area.\u00a0\u00a0By the time we got back I was pretty much done and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.\u00a0 A couple of days well spent.<\/p>\n

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