Beppu Tsurumi-dake Ropeway - A Walk at the Mountain Summit

 I spent the morning exploring the Kan-nawa district, and the weather seems nice.

I thought, why not take the Beppu Tsurumi-dake Ropeway and go up to a higher place?

I can hear people speaking Chinese, Korean, and some other languages here.

Yesterday, I saw someone praying with a mat laid out between the hedges in the parking area.

It's amazing how people from all over the world can go wherever they want freely.

One of the things that elderly people can be grateful for is the senior citizen discount.

The round-trip fare for the Beppu Tsurumi-dake Ropeway is 1,700 yen (1,800 yen for adults).

I'm not fond of heights, but oh well.

It's starting to move!

It's going up rapidly.

We passed by a descending ropeway gondola on the way, but it was going at an incredible speed!

Wow, it's fast!

And then, an announcement:

"You might have thought that the descending gondola is fast, but the speed of going up and down is the same."

So, we were pulled up by that wire.

I bet it's strong for tug-of-war.

Isn't this cool panoramic view?

Looking at the summit of Mt. Tsurumidake from the ropeway station, it seems to be quite steep and distant.

But looking at this map, it seems that various spots are just a few minutes away.

I could probably go around the area on a pilgrimage to the Seven Lucky Gods.

(I should have been prepared for the existence of slopes at this point.)

The thermometer here shows 16.5 degrees Celsius.

It's not as hot as on the ground.

I think there was a cherry blossom and a sign.

This is called "Mamushi-gusa"(poisonous snake), the stem skin colour looks like snake skin.

Isn't this a violet?

The summit is still in spring.

Even though I thought about turning back now, I slowly climbed up while sweating.

I felt like giving up many times, but when I saw the sign of one of the Seven Lucky Gods in the distance, I ended up walking all the way there again.

Finally, my field of vision opened up.

Mount Yufu is right in front of me.

When I looked at it from the foot of the mountain, I wondered if I could really go up to such a place, but before I knew it, I had come all the way here.

As one of those who usually live carefreely, it's only polite to greet the heavenly gods when standing at the summit.

I have reached the summit!!!

Standing at the top feels great.

The mountain god ...

Now, let's descend.

Met with the Chinese family at the entrance of the ropeway, with a baby in a stroller, to me they looked quite active and powerful.

Until the next departure time, let's take a look around this area quietly.

After descending, when I looked at the map again, I realized that the signboard provided more detailed explanations than the first one I saw.

Ever since relying on the car navigation system for driving, I seem to have stopped looking at the map, memorizing the route in my mind, and then taking action based on it.

The signboard indicated that it would take around 60 minutes for a complete circuit, with a note mentioning "3 minutes" probably based on the walking speed of experienced mountaineers.

However, it didn't seem to take into consideration factors like increased physical strain and time lost due to uphill slopes, especially for the old bastard like me.

 

In any case, managed to get on the gondola for the descent and finally returned to the ground.

By this point, any desire for detours or discovering something new had completely faded away.

Instead of setting my home address on the car navigation system for the return journey, input the destination to the radon hot springs, which I usually visit to relax and relieve fatigue.