"4th Japanese ultra. This was by far the hardest of the lot so far. We started from the Kigensugi bus stop from here up until 1.5 km from the top was smooth sailing, the last 1.5 to the summit were extremely steep though. However the way down was much worse. We were wanting to catch the bus from the Arakawa trailhead out, however what wasn't clear to us was that from Miyanoura down to the Jomonsugi was extremely undulating, uneven terrain. Additionally, many of the paths had turned into creeks making descending even more difficult. Once we got down to the forest railway we tried to jog the rest of the way to make it in time to catch the bus. Unfortunately, the path was so poorly signed that we couldn't tell how far we were along, and stopped jogging to conserve energy. In the end we eventually made it to the trailhead and caught a taxi back down the hill. Altogether a extremely difficult hike but enjoyable in retrospect." — Hiyouboots • Sep 6, 2025

"Yakoshima trip Left for the airport on Thursday, check in was real issue. Put my pack on the scanner for the security check to check in my luggage. I had something in my pack that the security officer wanted to see inside my pack. She was a 4'9" female that must have weigh 95 pounds. It was funny watching her trying to lift a 30 pound pack. I had to help her lift my pack. She did not speak any English, then she give me a hand jester like something round. I assumed that it was my pot and pans. That would make since I had my knife and stove in that area. I had to open the side zipper and try to pull out my pots and pan. She did not want to see it. Then we started to pull everything out of my pack. She could not find what she was looking for. She was starting to get frustrated cause she could not find the item. After twenty minutes of looking in my bag she turns to me and in very broken English and gives me the hand gesture, she said "batt- er-ey" got it. she was looking for my battery pack that was in the top of the pack. I unzip the the top flap and gave her what she was looking for. It only took two second after she told me. After we all got our pack check in we went to the r..." — Bear • May 3, 2015