Mt. Takao , Tokyo Japan 2021/ Chair Lift（高尾山、チェアーリフト）A little bit early for Maple trees viewing.

Tokyo, a city of millions of people, can sometimes be a little crowded, or even oppressive. Strangely enough, it’s not too hard to get away from the city into a wilderness, Takao san, or Mount Takao, a small but beautiful mountain of 599 meters, rising on the edge of the larger mountain range about 40km west of Shinjuku.

Wonderfully, this beautiful and relaxing mountain, with its chairlift and cable-car, its temples and food stalls, and its walking trails and trees, birds and animals is less than an hour and a half from the bustle of central Tokyo.

The one way fare is 490 yen (Adult)for both cable car and chair lift, 250 yen (kids) you will earn a slight discount for a round trip ticket. The entrances to both are located close together, although getting to the chair lift departure point requires walking up two steep sets of stairs. Once you’re there, it’s quite a trip. You step onto the moving walkway, the chair looms up behind you, and you fall back into it.
There is no safety rail at the front of the chair but there is netting below the chair lift on the high bits so that if you fall you won’t fall far. The view is extraordinary. The terminuses of both the cable car and the chair lift are also close together, the chair lift a little lower than the cable car. If you forgot to bring provisions, a stall at the cable car terminus sells small backpacks for 750 yen and another sells knotted walking sticks for 700 yen. There are also food stalls.

A trip to Takao san really needs a full day to get there and back and to appreciate its possibilities. The easiest and cheapest way to get there is to take the Keio Takao Line train from Shinjuku Station. Start with a semi-special express to Kitano Station and change there to a local train for Takaosanguchi Station. It takes about an hour and costs 390 yen.