Aka-dake - Highest peak in Yatsugatake Mountains

The Yatsugatake Mountains (八ヶ岳連峰) is a chain of volcanic mountains on the border between Nagano Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture. The mountains consist of two groups, South Yatsugatake and North Yatsugatake, and both are in the Yatsugatake-Chūshin Kōgen Quasi-National Park.

Mount Aka (Aka-dake 赤岳) is a 2,899m mountain that is the highest mountain in the Yatsugatake Mountains.

See mountain weather forecast of Mt. Aka at 2899m. 

Access: Minoto-guchi (美濃戸口) is the one of the famous for starting point of climbing and mountaineering heading for the Yatsutagake Mountains. You can go there by car, public bus or taxi. There is a forest-road leading to Minoto-sanso (美濃戸山荘; Minoto mountain lodge), but the road is very narrow and 4WD is recommended. Many hikers are walk the forest-road for 1hr from Minoto-guchi to Minoto-sanso and we also did so. We got Minoto-guchi at midnight, parked our car, and start walking before sunrise at 20th September, 2015.

The starting point of forest road at Minoto-guchi.

The sign pointing to the Minoto-sanso.

 Walk a bit from Minoto-sanso, here is the starting point for a Yatsugatake climbing.

First, we take the trail that goes Gyoja Hut (行者小屋) walk through the mossy forest for about 2hr.

From Gyoja Hut (行者小屋), you can see Aka-dake (赤岳) well.

Many hikers set up a camp here.

The trail that lead to Aka-dake can be find behind the hut. The trail above the hut, it become hard and rocky ridge, but it is well-marked. About 2hr hike, we could reach the Aka-dake Tenbo-so (赤岳天望荘) that is very close to the peak of Aka-dake (赤岳). Hiked up again for 1hr, we stood at the top of Aka-dake (赤岳).

There are two major route to get back to the Gyoja Hut, and we chose the route through the Naka-dake (中岳). Once drop to the col between Aka-dake and Naka-dake, and go up to Naka-dake for 30min. When we turned around, there was rocky Aka-dake in front of us and Gyoja Hut below our eye.

Aka-dake from Naka-dake

Gyoja Hut from Naka-dake