My favorite trail

I am definitely my parents' daughter...and its entertaining to me that I seem more and more like them as I grow up and especially since I'm so far away from them. I am always full of pride when I do get to talk about them, and I truly am blessed to have their words of wisdom and life experiences to draw from. All too often I hear my mom's words and my abba's calming logical response in my head, inevitably when I am not sure how to handle a problem. Like my mom, I am in this constant need for change-too impatient to sit still and wait for things to happen, yet there are certain things that comfort me in their familiarity-which comes directly from my abba. Basically, I love you both so much and think about you often!

Anyways, Mount Takao is my version of my abba's Mount Diablo. I've made it to the summit of Takao-san (and further) four times now- in an attempt to hit all the different seasons.

November Fall Color...

The dead of March...

The early heat of June...

The blazing glare in August...

The train ride from my apartment to the trail head only takes an hour, then from the base, there are several ways up the mountain, from cable car, to chair-lift, to my favorite- steep path!! The summit of Takao-san is about 3.5 km, and as I have discovered, it is only the start of a long line of mountain peaks connected by trails. So this last time I turned my hike into 20 km as I meandered over 5 peaks. This phallic statue greeted me at the last one!!