Outdoor Bouldering in Mitake, Tokyo

A weekend trip to Mitake for some bouldering + baths + fall leaves.

We went bouldering outdoors on a weekend in November, when it wasn’t too cold yet. One of the popular spots for outdoor bouldering in Tokyo is in Mitake which is about 2.5 hours train ride in the west of Tokyo. A lot of people don’t know that western third of Tokyo consists of mostly mountains. (We even have bears!)

Mitake is also known for other outdoor sports like river rafting and canoeing in case you want to combine a few outdoor activities. The area is also good for hiking and quite scenic especially in the fall with all the leaves turning red and yellow.

We rented crashpads at a used outdoor shop Maunga (1500 yen) which is right in front of the Mitake station. You can book them in advance, but I don’t think it’s very necessary. I’m not sure if there are English Topos available, but you can always take a look at the Crag.com. Some Boulder gyms in the city also sell some Topos (I saw a few in one of the B-Pump gyms)

Most people do day trips and go back into the city but we decided to take it slow and stay a night in the mountains. Since it was a fall weekend, hotels in Mitake were booked out so we booked a room in a ryokan (type of traditional Japanese inn, kind of like B&B) in Okutama, which is another 20 minutes train ride further into the mountains and a slightly bigger town than Mitake.

We stayed at Gyokusuisou (we got one of the public bath all to ourselves!) which I really liked and ate at a very nice local Izakaya (Japanese bar) called Kimichan which was the only place that was open when we got off the station around 6pm on a Sunday.

A great weekend getaway with a bit of bouldering, relaxing baths, fall leaves and some good soba noodles.