Vaillant Family Blog: Mt. Takao

A couple weeks ago we took the boys to a nearby mountain to hike. We had heard Mt. Takao was doable for kids, and it was only about a 40 minute drive from base. We started out at the museum at the bottom of the mountain where we saw a variety of stuffed animals. I guess the mountain is known for its flying squirrels! We started to hike up the mountain but quickly turned around when we saw how steep the initial climb was, and Lincoln was already complaining. We took a chair lift up the mountain instead which turned out to be a great choice for us. The boys enjoyed the long ride up, and there was not one complaint. At the top we walked around the viewing areas and then entered the monkey park. We enjoyed watching the monkeys interact and bought food to feed them. After feeding the monkeys, we fed ourselves lunch on a bench at one of the overlooks. We then hiked down the mountain which was paved the entire way. Some spots were pretty steep but we made it down the mountain in about 40 minutes with a couple short stops. It was a great little family day trip. We enjoyed it so much, Eric and I decided to go back on a date day we had already planned about a week later. It was a much cooler day and a little wet but we were determined to go back and hike to the top of the mountain. We hiked up the steep trek we had taken down with the boys and had lunch at a restaurant with a nice view. After lunch we continued hiking up to reach the highest point of the mountain. We took a different trail down which was a little tough in spots but a good challenge. We saw a small temple with waterfall on the way down and some other interesting sites. We hiked a total of about 5 miles and it was so nice to have the quiet time with Eric to chat and just enjoy the beauty of the mountain. Here are some pics from both of our trips to Mt. Takao.....