Mount Akagi

Akagi is not one peak but a ring of them around a caldera, the Kurobi, Komagatake and Jizo-dake among them, and the road does most of the climbing for you. Buses from Maebashi Station wind up to Lake Onuma, at roughly 1,300 meters, where summer highs sit around 22°C and a jacket is still a good idea. Akagi Shrine stands on Kotorigashima, a small peninsula in the lake, where it was moved from the nearby Ohora area in 1970; the vermilion buildings against the water are the photo most people come for. Kurobi-san, 1,828 meters, is the highest point. Its trailhead is a short walk from the shrine, and the path climbs hard through forest from the first minute. The usual loop over Kurobi and Komagatake and back to the lake takes about three and a half hours, and the iron stairs on the way down from Komagatake get slippery when wet. In winter the lake freezes and people drill holes in the ice to fish for wakasagi smelt, usually from early January to March. One warning: on the mornings of the Akagi Onuma Shirakaba Marathon and the Maebashi Akagisan Hill Climb, road closures stop buses reaching the lake.