Mount Kongo

Mount Kongo is a mountain people climb out of habit. Buy a count card and the summit staff stamp it each time you come up, once a day; climbers with 100 or more ascents are honoured every 3 May, and the record holder has passed 10,000. Plenty of Osaka people go up before work. The real summit, Katsuragi-dake at 1,125 m, lies behind the main hall of Katsuragi Shrine in Gose and is sacred ground you may not enter, so the open plaza on the Kunimi Castle ruins, with a live camera and a view over Osaka Bay, is where everyone stops. Close by is Tenporin-ji, said to have been founded by En no Gyoja, the founder of Shugendo, who trained here. The standard route, Chihaya Hondo from the Kongo Tozanguchi bus stop, takes about 100 minutes up, much of it on steps, and passes near the ruins of Chihaya Castle, where Kusunoki Masashige held off the Kamakura army. The ropeway that once did the work stopped in March 2019 and has been scrapped. On cold winter days the summit trees can be coated with rime ice, and stretches of trail freeze, so bring chain spikes. Approaches from the Nara side are longer and much rougher. Mount Katsuragi is the next big peak north along the Diamond Trail.