Mount Takao

Mount Takao
Mount Takao
高尾山
Highest point
Elevation	599 m (1,965 ft)
Geography
	Mount Takao Japan
Location	Hachiōji, Tokyo, Japan
Climbing
Easiest route	Chairlift or Funicular or Hiking

Mount Takao (高尾山, Takao-zan) is a mountain in the city of Hachiōji, Tokyo, Japan. It is protected within Meiji no Mori Takao Quasi-National Park.

Standing 599 metres (1,965 ft) tall and located within an hour of downtown Tokyo, it is a popular hiking spot, with eight hiking courses and more than 2.5 million annual visitors. The Tama Forest Science Garden is also located at the mountain's base.

Mount Takao is closely associated with tengu, minor kami from Japanese folklore, and the daitengu Naigubu. A Buddhist temple, Takaosan Yakuōin Yūkiji, is located on the mountain.

Climbing Mount Takao

Visitors to Mount Takao can choose to start climbing from the base, or take a funicular or ropeway ride halfway up the mountain. The Takaotozan Railway operates both of these services. The system nominally has four stations—two each for the funicular and the ropeway. However, the distance between the pairs of stations is only a few dozen metres (at the base of the mountain) and approximately 150 metres (at the top of the services, which are themselves about a 30-minute scenic uphill walk from the top of Mount Takao itself), so they can essentially both be thought of as coming from and going to the same place.

Some visitors to Mount Takao bypass the Takaotozan Railway services entirely. Trail 1 from the base of the mountain is a somewhat arduous climb, but it is paved and leads past the top stations of both the ropeway and the funicular on the way to the summit. Trail 6 and the "Inariyama Trail" are unpaved trails that start from the base of the mountain and go all the way to the summit, but they do not pass the ropeway and funicular top stations. Some visitors to Takao ride up the mountain and then walk back down. The peak summit of Mount Takao is relatively small in comparison to that of the well-known Mount Fuji.

One end of the Tōkai Nature Trail is at Mount Takao, at the Takaosan-guchi Station. The other end is at Minoh, near Osaka.

Wildlife

Despite the mountain's proximity to the metropolis of Tokyo, Mount Takao is rich in wildlife, with more than 1,200 species of plants and a wide variety of native animals and insects, including wild boars and monkeys. This diversity was under threat from the construction of the Ken-O Expressway, which involved the drilling of two 10 m tunnels through the heart of the mountain. The Ken-O Expressway opened to traffic on March 28, 2012.