「冬に向かう山 - 三頭山」 鈴木優香 A Mountain Reaching Wintertime / Mt. Mito - Yuka Suzuki

In mid-November, I visited Mt. Mito in Okutama. At first, I was hunching my back against the crisp air, but the walk from the Sheath Pass to the summit was unexpectedly steep, and gradually I began to feel warm and sweaty. All the trees had lost their leaves, so the sun was shining down on us. I quickly took off the jacket I was wearing and put it in my pack. The season of autumn leaves had passed, but it was a refreshing and pleasant walk in the mountains.

The leaves piled up on the ground were dry and each one curled up as if they were embracing the air. Reddish brown, yellowish brown, greenish brown. From a distance, they look uniform, but when you get closer, you realize that there are many different colors. I also learned that there are moments when the scenery around my feet changes. When I enter a beech forest, there are many beech leaves piled up, and when there are magnolia trees, there are magnolia leaves mixed in. Of course, it is natural that the type of fallen leaves would change depending on the surrounding vegetation, but I felt like I had made a new discovery. I picked up one of the leaves of the magnolia tree, which was as big as my face, picked it by the end and turned it around. The wavy edges of the leaf swayed, and I thought it was beautiful.

As I walked along, crunching through the fallen leaves, I stopped to listen to the occasional chirping of birds. I looked around, but could not find them. I went to the end of the path, where people were gathering, and saw a few red maples behind the trees.

【Our route this time】
Tokyo Citizen’s forest parking lot - Saiguchi Pass (Saiguchi Touge) - Mt. Mito - Mushikari Pass (Mushikari Touge)- Mito Otaki – Tokyo Citizen’s forest parking lot
Course time: about 4 hours
※The course is introduced as "Beech Road Course（ブナの路コース）" on the homepage of Hinohara Village Tomin no Mori.

On the way back, I stopped by the wood craft center and made this key chain. It has a nice scent of cypress.

【Items worn】
BASELAYER：W 200 OASIS LS SCOOP
MIDLAYER：W DESCENDER LS ZIP

【Profile】
Yuka Suzuki
After graduating from graduate school, she joined an outdoor manufacturer, where she worked on product planning and design, before going independent in 2016 and starting her own project, "MOUNTAIN COLLECTOR," in which she makes handkerchiefs from the scenery she sees in the mountains. She continues to express herself through photography, design, and writing, with mountains and travel as her life's work.
www.mountaincollector.com