Thinking Allowed: Communing with Koyasan

I spent awhile deliberating on what day trip I would enjoy if I had no children with me. The happy truth is that the choice of appealing options was vast and I likely have an arsenal of dozens of potentially enjoyable day trips from Osaka. In the end I settled on, unsurprisingly, a walk up a mountain - the sacred Mount Koya. Mount Koya, also known as Koyasan, is the birthplace of Shingon Buddhism and has remained a sacred refuge for the 1,200 years since. Many tourists come to this UNESCO designated world heritage site to stay in Buddhist temple accommodations and experience temple life. The Koyasan region, in addition to housing numerous temples and shrines, is also known for its Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. I like hiking up mountains even when there aren't vegetarian meals waiting for me at the top, so this seemed like a great destination. And sacred peaceful quiet all sounded like words I could enjoy. As pilgrimage to Mount Koya has been happening for hundreds of years the pilgrimage path up the mountain is clearly marked every hundred meters by trail markers that were donated 900 years ago. Wow.

But then I started reading about bear attacks and warnings and I thought, am I being foolish hiking 24 kilometers up a mountain path alone in the middle of winter? I nearly lost my enthusiasm but then solaced myself with the fact that bears hibernate during the winter. I am glad I went. It turned out to be a cool rainy and misty morning. I mostly had the trail, and the entire forest, all to myself. Aside from the 180 or so ornate trail markers, I saw only one other person - a trail runner with no less than two bear bells attached to his pack. I heard him coming a long way off and had lots of time to think about if a bear ate a bear bell would we hear the ringing sound as it walked? I later saw the same trail runner running down the mountain and I felt proud to be sharing the forest with someone running 50 kilometers before lunch. I learned that trails are nicer when they have shrines along the way and that trails are way spookier in thick fog. I also learned that it is nice to be a hiker in Japan because the one bathroom along the trail (and all the ones in Koyasan) had heated toilet seats.

I arrived on top of the mountain and lightly walked through the mist enshrouded torii that heralded my arrival. I was soaked through but happy. I strolled along aweing at temple complexes and feeling both peaceful and cold. My vegetarian lunch had four different kinds of tofu and was everything I had hoped for in a meal. After strolling through about three kilometers of one of the most enchanting cemeteries I had ever seen I made my slow plodding way back to Osaka.