June 27, 1999 Day 10: Nakasendo Trail

As we began making our way back to Tokyo, the plan today was to hike the 7.3 kilometer section of the Nakasendo between the post towns of Magome and Tsumago. We had no idea that the skies would deluge us with heavy rain early on in the hike. About 2 kilometers from Tsumago, we noticed some trees moving only to discover that a section of the trail had washed away. We back-tracked 30 minutes to access the paved highway for the rest of the walk.

Wet and tired, we made a short visit in Tsumago before catching a bus back to Nakatsugawa Station to pick up our luggage. We boarded our train for Nagano and made it a couple of stations before being told that the rail line had been closed due to the rain. Stranded at Nagiso Station, we had no choice but to wait since the highways were also closed to through traffic. Following a 3 hour inspection of the railbed, our train finally continued on to our destination.

Today’s pictures unfortunately due little justice to the beautiful scenery and quaintness of the historic villages of Magome and Tsumago. For a much better log of the hike along this section of the Nakasendo, please see Day 7 of my trip in 2005.