Ireland day 1332. Thursday 22 May 2025- Hakone 2

Today’s summary	After breakfast we walked down the hill to the Togendai lower cable car station. Caught a cable car up to the top station at Owakudani then changed to another for the journey down to Sounzan. Got onto a funicular train to travel further down to Gora for a quick look round. Reversed the journey back up to Owakudani and paused there to look at the fumaroles and the Geo-museum. Cablecar back part of the way down and far as Ubako and walked the final short distance through the forest to the ryokan. Dinner at a nearby Korean restaurant. (NB confusingly in Japan a cablecar is a called a ropeway and a funicular is called a cablecar.)
Today’s weather	Some overnight rain but dry with light cloud for the rest of the day. No wind or slight south westerly breeze. Appx 20c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Drive to Korean Restaurant

Commentary

Hakone is a bit of an oddity – it’s more of a region than a town. Basically it’s the collection of settlements in the caldera of a giant collapsed volcano that emerged 400,000 years ago. In the centre of the caldera is a hill which is still volcanically active, with sulphurous fumaroles and hot springs boiling away on its slopes.

The two sides of the caldera are connected by a train / funicular / cablecar system which runs over the central hills, right over the active area. Taking the cablecars and trains from one side to the other and back makes for an interesting way of getting to see a larger part of the Hakone area. That’s what we decided to do today.

We awoke early as usual, so enjoyed the now obligatory morning onsen before dropping into breakfast at 8am. Once we’d eaten, we got our things and walked down the hill to the Togendai lower cablecar station. We only had a few moments to wait before a cabin arrived to transport us back up the hill – the most complicated thing about the journey was working out how to get tickets from the machine.

We sped uphill quickly, floating over the jungly tree-tops (which seemed to contain a lot of magnolias and cupressus) as magnificent panoramas opened up behind us, looking back over Lake Ashi and of course Mt Fuji.

The cable car paused briefly at Ubako intermediate station then pressed on upwards to the top station at Owakudani. Here you can either change to another cable car to continue down towards Gora, or pause to admire the sulphurous fumaroles and magnificent views.

Mindful of the possibility that the cable car could close in bad weather, (as it had done on the day we arrived) we elected to make hay while the sun shone, and caught the second cablecar straight down to Sounzan. From there, you cross to a separate part of the station where a funicular railway takes you on the final steep descent to Gora.

In keeping with much of Hakone, Gora seems to be very spread out. There are numerous museums, galleries and onsens to be visited but we really didn’t have time. From there you can catch a “proper” train (the famous switchback line) which eventually takes you all the way back to Odawara. But after just a brief stopover, we decided to retrace our steps up the funicular and cablecar, back to Owakudani.

It’s worth noting at this point that, slightly confusingly, here in Japan what I would call a cablecar is called a ropeway, and what I would call a funicular is called a cablecar. So now you know.

Returning to the summit station at Owakudani, we stopped for longer this time. First to enjoy some snacks for lunch, and second to admire the sulphurous volcanic fumaroles where the water for use in all the local onsens is heated. We also went round the excellent Geo museum (entry fee just ¥100) and learned that the most recent “eruption” (ie emergence if a new fumarole) happened only ten years ago, in 2015.

Eventually, we’d had enough of the smell of sulphur and took the cable car back down towards Ashi again. But we hopped off as it passed through Ubako, which is the nearest cablecar station above our ryokan, and walked the final couple of hundred meters through the forest down the hill back to base.

Once in our room, we had just enough time to take a hot dip before getting changed and setting off again. Tonight, the ryokan staff suggested that by way of a change we might want to go to a local Korean barbecue restaurant for dinner. Of course, being up for a challenge, we jumped at the chance. So we were driven there at 6pm and soon ensconced in our tiny dining booth in the restaurant, complete with gas barbecue set into the table in front of us.

We enjoyed a gigantic and extremely proteinaceous dinner, washed down with what we thought was beer but because we were having difficulty reading the Japanese menu, turned out to be a non alcoholic substitute. Anyway, we enjoyed it and as soon as we had finished, we were promptly collected and whisked back to the ryokan.

We were in our room again by 8:30pm, with just enough time to polish off a (real!) beer from the fridge and to listen to the distance deep boom-booms of army night-time heavy artillery practice somewhere near Fuji (it stops at 10pm). Finally, it will be time to retire to bed and look back on yet another interest-packed and very rewarding day.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Decking path down from our ryokan to the road. Beautiful gardens	Hades!

Obligatory photo opportunity from Owakudani	From the observation deck at Owakudani, looking over to Tokyo on the far distant horizon with the cablecar to Sounzan in the foreground

The fumaroles are behind us – the hot spring water for the ryokans comes from here, but apparently has to be created by warming groundwater with superheated gas from the funmaroles. It’s all carefully and precisely managed	Korean banquet. Huge!

Driver’s eye view up the funicular (aka Cablecar in Japan)