Konze Alps

What?
The term “alps” isn’t really apt, but the Konze Alps (金勝アルプス) is a mountainous area southwest of Lake Biwa (琵琶湖). It offers a green and dense forest, a waterfall, Buddhist carvings and more famously big rock formations.
Where?
Konze Alps is located in Shiga Prefecture (滋賀県), but is easily reachable from Kyoto or Osaka. Getting off at Kusatsu Station (草津駅), you need to take bus 153 to KamiKiryuu (上桐生). It will take around 30 minutes to reach the terminal from where the trail immediately starts.
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Hiking in Japan

For this second hiking trip in Shiga Prefecture, we were definitely better prepared than on our first trip to Yatsubuchi-no-Taki. I double-checked all information I got and also relied on travel reports as recent as December 2016. Still, when we wanted to board the bus at Kusatsu Station it seemed that they had changed the time table as recently as April 1st. This meant we had to wait for an additional 30 minutes. When the bus driver also stopped along the way just to come and shush us – despite the absence of anyone else – it just didn’t feel like a good start of the hike. On top of that it started drizzling when we were about to commence.

However things turned around for the better from that point. The drizzle wasn’t bothersome and made the forest look fresher and greener. With all the ferns gleaming in the misty haze, it seemed like we were on the island of Jurassic Park. The drizzle also meant that the mountains were pretty much deserted. And despite the lack of any vistas the various rock formations were fascinating enough to keep things interesting.

We chose to start the hike walking towards Ochigataki Waterfall (落ヶ滝). Afterwards we headed for the enormous Tengu-Iwa (天狗岩) to trail back to the starting point making a loop via the Komasaka Buddhist carvings (狛坂磨崖仏). This just shows how versatile this course is. In merely 5 to 6 hours you get to see beautiful lush nature, a waterfall, strange and inspiring eroded rock formations and Buddhist carvings. And if the weather is fine you probably also get to see some beautiful vistas.

This is only the start of the hike.

Some parts have ropes but are not dangerous.

Foggy.

Really fascinating, these formations.

The hike itself was not that hard, although maybe not for beginners. There were a few ropes we had to grab onto to be able to continue, but they weren’t dangerous and despite the rain the underground was not slippery. The loop towards the Buddha carvings was quite rocky, but nothing some decent shoes can’t handle.
So the conclusion is that this hike really had a lot to offer and if you like walking in nature and happen to be in the neighborhood of Kyoto I can really recommend this trip.