The weather today was beautiful so Tod & I decided to go for a little hike. He always has his eye on local mountains to walk up and today it was Ondara-yama in Minamiboso.

What an absolute delight. It’s a ten minute walk on a moderately steep, well maintained trail from the parking lot to the top of the 96 meter peak. Though that sounds rather low, it’s the highest point in the local plain and the views are excellent.

We saw the Mineoka range, the JSDF radar dome on Mt. Atago, and Kamogawa beach from an angle we’d never encountered before. On the signboard at the peak, we learned there is a mountain called Hiratsuka-yama, though it seems to be not in our Hiratsuka neighborhood.

And then we turned around to see this:

That is a telephoto shot from my phone but the view was spectacular even without the zoom level at 30x. Our neighbor Bernie posted a photo of Mt Fuji today, too, and I commented that it feels like a blessing from Nature to see her. She is a majestic mountain.

We made our way home via the coast and stopped to wander around among tidepools and rocks on the Pacific shore at Emi.

I did not start today expecting an afternoon out with mountains and ocean, but I sure am glad that’s how it turned out.