Shizuoka West Mountains

My friend Craig came out from Yokohama today to enjoy some riding in the local mountains. We headed up north west of town onto some roads I've never been on but had planned to ride one day. This was the day, and wow we must have done thousands of nice curves. When we started Craig's almost new tires had quite wide chicken strips. By the end of the day they were down to narrow strips and my previously narrow strips no longer existed.

Ah what's better than stopping under a large Cherry Blossom tree in season.

Slightly lost here at a 4 way intersection.

Bridge guardians on duty.

Here's the bridge they're guarding.

We found a Gaijin Riders logo on a sign. My wife says this figure is the 'Living Mountain'.

We rode along this mountain top ridge. It was very cold but the view was nice. Just off the road here is an almost straight drop.

View to the south. This is a summer recreation area, empty today.

We noted the trails built for logging.

Here you can see a recently logged area and new trees that have been planted. It is amazing how steep these hills are.

Here's a shot of the ridge road. It was great fun and there was no traffic.

Here's Craig exploring the inside of a large deer statue.

This was a very beautiful road. Swoopy curves and cut through a small river gorge. Note the rock extends here over the road. Again, zero traffic we had the road to ourselves.

Here's a shot showing the creek and more of the road. Note the wire at the top, you just can't get away from them in Japan!

Here's my GPS track of where we went.