Mount Katsuragi

Mount Katsuragi is the gentle, grassy one. At 959 m it is lower than its neighbour Mount Kongo on the ridge between Nara and Osaka, and its top is not a sharp peak but a wide plateau of grass and low shrubs known as Katsuragi Kogen. Around mid-May the slope below the summit turns red with azaleas, the view Kintetsu advertises as a million bushes at a glance. The azaleas are fairly recent: they spread after the bamboo grass on the summit died back around 1970, and the grass is still cut twice a year to keep them.

Most people go up on the Katsuragisan Ropeway, a Kintetsu line that opened on 26 March 1967. The cabin climbs 561 m over about 1.4 km in roughly 6 minutes, and from the top station it is about 15 minutes on foot to the lodge and the plateau. A return ticket is 1,500 yen. In azalea season the ropeway is the bottleneck. Kintetsu runs extra cars (29 April to 17 May in 2026), but on a fine May weekend the queue at the bottom can still be long, and the car park, about 120 spaces at 1,000 yen, fills early. Go on a weekday if you can.

If you would rather walk, the Kujira-no-taki trail starts near the ropeway's lower station and takes about two hours up, past the Kujira waterfall and steep in places. The ridge path over the summit is part of the Diamond Trail, which runs from Mount Nijo over Mount Kongo.

Out of season the mountain is quiet, and I like it better then. Silver susuki grass covers the plateau in autumn (the lodge's susuki festival ran from 19 September to 12 October in 2026), and on a clear day you look straight down over the Nara Basin. The Katsuragi Kogen Lodge near the summit is a public lodge with rooms and a restaurant; its duck hot pot, kamo-nabe, is the dish it is known for, at 4,500 yen per person. No road goes to the top, so it is the ropeway or your legs. The ropeway also stops for inspection in early June (1 to 17 June in 2026).