Day 7: Temples 20 and 21

Alarm: 6:00 am; Breakfast: 6:30 am; Start: yada, yada, yada.

After completing our side trip off of the main henro michi (“pilgrim road”), we had to backtrack 5.2 km to the town of Katsuura to start our climb to Kakurinji (Temple 20 – “Crane Forest Temple”). Temples 20 and 21 are considered the next nansho (“difficult journey”) temples after Shosanji (Temple 12) back on Day 3. (I’ll finish that entry, I swear.) They don’t have switchbacks on the trail, so it’s pretty much a straight climb to the top following the terrain. Karurinji sits at 497.3 meters above sea level and valley we started from only a few meters above that. My nephew is 30 years younger than me, about 40 pounds lighter and lives in the Pacific Northwest. He could have run circles around me if he so chose to. It was another tough climb.

We arrived around 9:30 a.m., performed the rituals, got our items stamped, took a few pictures and started for Tairyuuji (Temple 21 – “Great Dragon Temple”). I had originally hoped to visit a nearby bangai (“unnumbered”) temple called Omatsu Gongen and take the old Kamo Trail between Temples, but the only lodging I could secure for that night was 3 miles beyond Temple 21. We couldn’t afford the extra time it would have taken. Look up the story of the woman Omatsu and her cat and the cat’s revenge against those who mistreated her when you have some time.

We started descending to the river valley between the two temples around 10:15 which took a little over an hour and had lunch of rice balls, oranges and other snacks.

We started up the next mountain a little after noon. A tough climb, but not as tough as the one to Kakurinji.

We arrived at Tairyuuji a little after 1:30. It was a large, beautiful compound and both my nephew and I wished we could have stayed longer. We again performed the rituals, got our stamps and took longer than we should have taking pictures. It was approaching 3:00 p.m. We still had a 3 hour hike to our next lodging and I didn’t want to get caught on the final mountain pass of day when the sun went down.

It was getting late and we needed to start down the mountain. I found my nephew still taking pictures and was conflicted between “We gotta go!” and wishing to encourage his interest in photography. As we about to leave I found the dragon in the ceiling that’s an attraction of this temple, so we got delayed for another few minutes.

We started down the mountain, but, again, ran into another site I had wanted to visit. A large statue of Kukai sitting on top of a mound overlooking the valley and out in the direction of the temples of Koyasan on the main Japanese island of Honshu.

We practically ran down the mountain following the Iwaya Trail and what should have taken 2 hours was completed in 1:45. We completed crossing another mountain pass about 20 minutes before sunset and arrived at our lodging at 6:00.