Having exited the shuttle bus at Owakudani, we were now in a totally different world.  Surrounded by rocky landscapes and sulfurous smoke, we were in the volcanic area, ready to hop on the ropeway.  Basically you’re riding in a little pod suspended by cables some 100’s of feet in the air.  The Mrs. wasn’t too pleased at being dragged on this portion of the trip, having been traumatized by the snake incident earlier, and the chair lift at Takao yesterday…

Anyway, after grabbing my 3rd Mountain Dew of the trip (ahhhhh!) we got a pod all to ourselves.  The view from up here was incredible.  The first section of the trip takes you directly over the volcanic basin, and you can see the sulfur deposits and the smoke hundreds of feet below you.

Then you come over the crest of a hill, and you are *really* hundreds of meters up over a beautiful valley, with some small towns far below.  It’s too bad the first leg of this trip was down, I would have like to spent more time up there.

Once you finally reach the bottom of this leg at Sounzan station, you board a cable car which takes you down the rest of the way to Gora station.  This leg of the trip is fairly unremarkable, save for the numerous hydrangeas lining the tracks.  There are several local stops on the way, which seem to be mainly for hotel guests.

Next at the Swiss-themed station (I kid you not) at Gora, you board the switch-back train back to Hakone-Yumoto.  This leg of the trip is also fairly unremarkable, unfortunately.  You’ll catch a glimpse of the mountainsides here and there, but mostly you’ll be staring at the hillside the track runs on.  It’s called a switchback train, because at a few spots it must reverse direction to make the hairpin turns down the hill.

Eventually you arrive back where you started at Hakone-Yumoto, and your trip around the “Hakone Loop” is complete.  From here we had to catch a local train to Odawara, to find the reconstructed castle there.  We were actually ahead of schedule!

Related posts:

1. The Hakone Loop, Part. 1: Getting There….
2. The Hakone Loop: Part 3, Moto-Hakone and the Old Cedar Highway
3. The Hakone Loop, Part 2: Up the Mountain
4. The Hakone Loop, Part 4: Lake Ashi