Yuru Camp backpacking: The highlands and the doggy shrine

I mentioned at the end of the last post that I would be hiking up to the Takabocchi highlands, where there is a campsite Rin stays at in the first season in episode 5. We would camp up there too, then rest a day. The plan after that was to hike up to Jinbatagayama, a mountain with another campsite at the top from Yuru Camp. But it didn’t all go to plan for the second part. But it all didn’t go badly either. Read on to find out.

Hiking up to the Takabocchi highlands

We started the hike from the nearest train station we possibly could, instantly walking uphill. Takabocchi was shrouded in clouds in the distance.

We passed by a little minivan that had seen better days.

A little further up the valley we passed by some large abandoned-looking onsen with a big Totoro statue out the front.

We entered the forest at the foot of the mountain and it started to rain. But just by chance as soon as it did we passed by a gazebo for us to take shelter.

We had our lunch and as soon as we were finished the rain pretty much stopped.

Just up the road we came across another large abandoned building. No clue what it was but there was a buddah statue round the back and lots of buddhist decorations dotted about.

Climbing higher and higher the farmland got sparser and the forest denser.

We passed by about 3 gates/blockades covered in risk warnings, but we decided to continue regardless. After I failed to reach the Yuru Camp movie location I was determined to succeed this time.

Eventually we reached the reason for all the warnings – a landslide had hit the road. But this time the road was actually in use so there was an effort to clean it up. Pretty impressive scene though.

The only person at the site was a man around my age with his feet up in a mini truck. I asked if it was okay for us to cross and he seemed pretty chill about it, and told us to be careful but that it would be fine.

It wasn’t too much further and we would be at the top, but the climb was starting to get to us.

The weather was a little rainy and the clouds were low, and it wasn’t long until we entered them.

It’s worth mentioning for anyone else wanting to hike this, the hiking paths were completely overgrown, so we followed the road all the way up. This was supposed to be the entrance to one of the trails to the top. Can you see it? Neither can I.

The top of mount Takabocchi

It wasn’t long until we reached the start of the plateau, effectively the top. It was pretty flat from here. Rather eerie scenes with the low clouds. Or I guess we were high.

We found a rock with a rather nice illustration of what we were supposed to be seeing lol

Yuru Camp fans will recognise these towers:

We turned round a couple of corners and made it to the car park where Rin sets up her tent, and we had only a little bit better of a view as she did when she first arrived too. The stone thing is one of those view maps that annotate what you’re looking at.

We were greeted by a really nice man who was manning the site for the day, he even gave us some free bottled water because the camp site water wasn’t drinkable. He asked us if we were Yuru Camp fans and he was clearly happy when I said I was. He helped us find a spot to set up our tents and introduced us to one of the other nearby camers who was also a Yuru Camp fan.

After we set up I headed back into the main campsite building to indulge myself in the Yuru Camp stuff.

I grabbed me a free guide map that is definitely going up on my wall at home.

And there was a notebook filled with messages from other fans, as well as the manga open on the page with the same view a spot near the campsite. You can see my message in the bottom right 🙂

A quick break and I was ready to start my round of pilgrimage shots.

Just outside the carpark you can see the staircase that leads up to the summit.

On the way there I passed by this wooden monument thing.

Until eventually after the extremely exausting 400m of hiking, while Rin was greeted with a magical view at the summit I was greeted with – nothing.

I waited for the clouds to clear but they never did. So I headed back towards the campsite. Maybe it would clear in the morning. On the way back I had a lovely view back towards the towers.

I followed in Rins footsteps and snapped a pic of the campsite building. Luckily for us the vending machine was working.

I was hunting around for this shot but I realised it was just the tent area, and the tables and chairs had been removed to make space for more pitching space.

There’s a path round the back of the campsite building that leads straight to the towers.

She hops back on her bike so I followed her – on foot – to the cow farm.

I snapped some more pics around that area.

And then I turned around and headed back to the main road, as Rin did too.

Rin then goes to the lookout point right next to the entrance to the cow farm.

The cone said something about using a proper toilet and was only there to stop cars from driving up.

The view was also pretty terrible here, but I decided I would come back here too in the morning in the hopes that the clouds would clear.

This is where Rin cooks her signature cheese and bacon pasta meal.

I then went back to the antennas because I forgot there were some pics to take.

Rin has a victory moment there after a long climb to the plateau.

I tried my best to get the shot without tresspassing into the cow field.

She then has a little gander at the cow field.

As it just so happens, there were cows or something in the summer, but not conveniently in front of where Rin was standing.

A couple amateur photography pics of the antennae:

Here’s where Rin was standing, with a zoomed out shot so you can see a bit better.

She then heads to the hotspring that turned out to be closed. I would have gone but being on foot would have made it super extra hard. So I gave it a miss. Not much else to see either.

After all that photo taking we had some dinner, which was instant ramen á la boiling water in typical Rin fashion. We dozed off to the sounds of the Yuru Camp fan snoring rather violently in the area next to us.

I rose the next morning super early to catch the sunrise, and in the hopes the clouds had risen to get me a clear shot of Fuji and the lake.

Unfortunately the clouds seem to have descended instead, so no lake view, but Fuji was still visible in the distance. And it looked a ton better than it did the day before, with the whole “on top of the clouds” vibe.

There were other people up there that had driven up early to catch the sunrise too.

I went back to the carpark after and snapped this shot again towards Matsumoto.

Then I also went back to Rin’s cooking spot, and got this shot.

Another of Fuji, and one looking the other way towards the cow farm.

Ironically, I came back later to this spot just before we left to head back down and I had a great view of the lake, but fuji was hidden again. Can’t have both I guess. I guess it matches the screenshot closer though.

And just before we started our decent we passed a viewpoint. I snapped one last pic for good measure.

The decent was a billion times easier. We followed the road the same way we came and took the train back to our hostel in Matsumoto. We were pretty achy when we got back so spent the rest of the day resting our legs and relaxing. I had to rest up for my hike up to Jinbagatayama the following day (which ended up not happening). Go to the next page to find out what happened.

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