Mount Mitake

Sacred mountain in the western Tokyo municipality of Ome, 929 metres high and a pilgrimage site since the eighth century. The summit holds the Musashi Mitake Shrine, a major centre of the Shinto cult of the mountain wolf Oguchi-no-Magami, whose statues pilgrims still petition as guardian deities of their household dogs. The mountain belongs to Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park and is reachable from central Tokyo in about 90 minutes by rail to Mitake; a cable car then climbs the final 400 metres of altitude. The summit itself houses the shrine complex and a small settlement of shukubo, traditional pilgrim inns, that today also welcome day visitors for a shojin-ryori vegetarian lunch. Hikers continue down to the Rock Garden waterfall or along the ridge to Mount Otake.