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Walk or Hike in Whitemud Ravine Park and I Want To Visit Mt. Takao Someday
It has been a challenging 2020 and 2021 for everyone due to the global pandemic. Many people have been cooped up at home for far greater amounts of time than they would like. I'm fully vaccinated myself and hoping myself for a happier and more free to travel 2022. I would love to visit Japan again and see Osaka and Marioland at Universal Studios there, climb Mt Fuji, check out what's new in Tokyo, and if I had the time and energy to bike the Shimano Kaido. I've also wanted to climb Mt. Takao, which is a massive nature park inside the greater Tokyo metropolitan area. Tokyo is quite vast, and there are even metro trains to take you there (big bonus!). One of the things that has helped to keep me sane is to be able to go for a walk in the "wilderness" in my home city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Edmonton is the northernmost large city in Canada and winters here can be pretty harsh. Summers are very nice, but with climate change we have had forest fire smoke drifting in from British Columbia and from northern Alberta. There have also been weeks of heat wave too like in many parts of the world. The city itself winds along the North Saskatchewan River and there are many creeks and ravines that feed into the river. The "wilderness" I'm talking about is only a few minutes away by car from where I live and one of many natural spaces in the city, which is a big benefit of living here.
Whitemud Ravine Nature Reserve
Whitemud Ravine Park is a great outdoors space that is about seven kilometres long starting from the north, at the North Saskatchewan River, and then running south down to 23rd Avenue to Smith Crossing. Most of the park is at least 500 metres wide, with tall pines and spruce on the slopes of both sides of the valley along with tall bluffs in some places. The park is cut in half by Whitemud Drive and the Snow Valley ski hill there and Rainbow Valley Campground. It is an undeveloped area which is why it is full of wild life and native plants. If you want to get away from the city, then hiking in here is a great way to take a break and refresh. I hike mainly the south side of the park from the Whitemud and it is also nice that there are pokestops (for you Pokemon Go players) to hit at all the marked information plaques.
The trails are well marked, well groomed and it is a great walk in the woods in this park. There are many places to view the creek, and there are four bridges that cross over it on the south side. A beautifully done boardwalk that overlooks the horse shoe lake / swamp is also there. I have seen ducks, beavers, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, woodpeckers, sparrows, chickadees, and other animals along the trails.
The Japanese coined a term called shinrin-yoku or forest bathing, which basically means to immerse yourself in the forest. It is a good way to recharge your batteries with fresh air, the scent of the forest, the natural sights, and even the sounds of the wind through the trees. Just being surrounded by nature is a way to remind yourself of the natural beauty of the world and to let you know that life continues on its own cycle. This was a welcome break for me, especially on some mornings where the smell of the pines was so intense that it reminded me of hiking up in the mountains. Beavers are also more active along with deer so you might catch a glimpse of one.
I've included a series of photos from inside Whitemud Ravine below that chronicles a late spring, summer, and fall. The trails here can get busy and I often hike early in the morning. There are many regulars that hike down here for their daily exercise and there are many trail runners. The afternoons can be quite busy, especially on weekends. No bicycles are supposed to be on these paths, but there are many people walking their dogs (most of them pick up after their pets, but there are some bad apples in every bunch). I've also never seen a coyote down there (I see then around our house sometime though) or foxes, but I've seen droppings from one of these species several times.
A wider segment to the creek. Beavers have dammed it downstream somewhere and it helps to keep the creek running even when it hasn't rained in awhile.
A view of Whitemud Creek at the second bridge. The leaning pine leans more every year. The water level here is low due to the heat wave and lack of rain.
The first bridge, view west of the main creek.
The really nice boardwalk that was put in a year ago. It crosses above the oxbow lake that is turning into a bog / marsh. It can be pretty scummy there but there are ducks and dragonflies.
A view of the oxbow lake after a good rain. There water levels were quite high. An oxbow lake is a lake on a winding river that is left behind when the creek changed course and it is cut off.
A big pond area on Whitemud Creek as the beavers have dammed it downstream. There are at least several families of beavers busy at work doing their engineering along the creek. The beavers often live in the banks and they have food caches of trees and branches caches nearby.
A smokey morning in the valley from wildfire smoke.
A viewpoint looking SW along the creek. It looks huge here.
Chipmunks. These cute little guys are feeding on some sunflower seeds that someone left.
Then the big squirrel comes for their share.
Aspen woodland. Beavers like willow, popular, and birch trees which also grow in the valley.
Beaver dam.
The beaver pond again.
One morning there was the tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker in the trees. It was fairly far away but we saw it high up in a dead tree. You can see in above the centre of the picture.
Another morning there was a deer some ways down the trail.
A few mornings we have seen beavers in the creek or in the pond. There are two beavers feeding in this picture.
Closeup of a beaver feeding. Just a smaller juvenile.
Squirrel!
Beaver swimming with just his nose above the water.
Ducks!
A view along the creek.
A beaver stump
The second bridge in the fall. There are mainly yellow colours for the foliage.
Fall foliage along the path.
The boardwalk in the fall.
Some bluffs right at the first bridge.
This tree was recently taken down by a beaver. It hasn't been hauled away yet.
Fall colours along the creek.
Boardwalk in the fall.
The same tipping tree in the fall.
Beaver pond in the fall.
The aspen woodlands changing colour in the fall.
The big wide vista with fall colours from the lookout.
Mt. Takao, Tokyo, Japan
Now for a nature excursion of a different sort that isn't in Edmonton. This is a sidetrip I would like to do the next time I'm in Tokyo. Tokyo has some great parks like Shinjuku National Garden, Ueno Park, etc., but I want to get into the outdoors. There are a few mountains in the outer areas of Tokyo and Mt. Takao is a pretty well visited one. There are plenty of day trippers out there to take in nature, see the view from the top, and even visit the shrines and shops on the mountain. It isn't a wilderness expedition as you can take a chairlift or funicular most of the way up the mountain. However, it still is a forested and wild place where you can take several hiking trails up and down the mountain too.
You can get to the Mountain by metropolitan train and spend a nice day out in the sun there. I'll do a longer post about the mountain sometime, but I would love to take in the views and fresh air there. The mountain also has Shinto and Buddhist shrines on it and more than a few monuments and statuary. In particular there are statues of Tengu, the mythical warrior-birdmen yokai that inhabit the mountain.
The excerpt below from Wikipedia describes the mountain well.
"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 the Shinto-Buddhist tengu, minor kami from Japanese folklore, and the daitengu Naigubu. The mountain is also renowned for Shugendō, the mountain asceticism focusing on strict discipline. A Buddhist temple, Takaosan Yakuōin Yūkiji, is located on the mountain, and attracts many visitors who pray to the tengu for good fortune. The temple belongs to the Shingon Buddhist sect.
Hiking to the top of Mount Takao takes an average of 90 minutes, but the time may vary depending on the method used to climb the mountain. 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. Past the summit lies a larger network of hiking trails, many of which connect to the many peaks of the nearby Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park. 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. Sites including a suspension bridge found along Trail 4 and numerous waterfalls (such as the Biwa Falls, found on Trail 6) are scattered along the numerous trails. On Trail 1, hundred-year-old cedars line the path, including Takosugi, the famous octopus cedar, with a height of 37 meters and a circumference of about 19 feet. This enormous tree is estimated to be around 500 years old. Along with cable cars and chair lifts, Mount Takao has several stores and sweet shops. There are a total of three observation decks scattered along Trail 1. A monkey park is located on Trail 1, just past the first observation deck. At the base of the mountain, one can enjoy a soak in the Keio Takaosan Onsen Gokurakuyu, or visit the 599 Museum, which focuses on the ecology surrounding Mount Takao. In addition to Mount Takao's most popular temple, Takaosan Yakuōin Yūkiji, many other shrines and statues are scattered throughout the mountain. Most of dedicated to the tengu, considered to be guardians of the mountain, but several are dedicated to the Buddha and other Buddhist and Shinto figures. While many people explore Mount Takao during the day, visitors can also hike the mountain at night as Trail 1 is lined with lanterns." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Takao
That little excerpt just wets the appetite and I've included a nice introductory video below (40 minutes actually - so not short).
When I go to this mountain I'm probably going to hike up and take the easy way down on the lift. I'd love to visit shrines and monuments on the way up, see some big old cedars - especially ones that are sacred, and enjoy the climb. At the top, there are places to eat and enjoy the view too so it isn't exactly roughing it!
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