Ōyama-san delivers more than sore legs — it’s a mountain with a long memory, and a many-layered history. Rising 1,252 metres above Isehara City, within the Tanzawa-Ōyama Quasi-National Park, it’s one

Ōyama-san delivers more than sore legs — it’s a mountain with a long memory, and a many-layered history. Rising 1,252 metres above Isehara City, within the Tanzawa-Ōyama Quasi-National Park, it’s one of the Kantō region’s most important sacred sites. Why, you ask? According to Shintō mythology, the deity enshrined at Ōyama Afuri Shrine on the mountain is the god of rain and water, and the father of the kami of Mount Fuji. This pilgrimage route was busy, social, and ultra-competitive back in the Edo period. Much of it still survives today, marked by stone steps and old inns climbing steadily uphill. And now, you can tread that same, well-worn path — minus the oversized sword (unless you want that, in which case yo

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