Hiking Around Yokosuka

Here are some hiking trails in the area.

Daibutsu hiking trail. This is a longish trail in Kamakura that can be hiked in several different segments. We started in Hase (near the Great Buddha), hiked the ridgeline, then came down into town and hit a couple of the Kamakura shrines. You can also hike all the way up into Kita Kamakura. Pretty gentle hike once you get to the top of the ridgeline, but would be very slippery when wet. More walks and hikes in Kamakura

This is my source for other hikes around Yokosuka. The site is in Japanese, but I use Google translator. The trail maps are all in Japanese and don't translate, but I've had pretty good luck by matching up the kanji for the train stations to figure out where the trail goes. These range from easy city strolls to trail hiking.

Last week we did the hike from Keikyu Taura to Yokosuka. This one is about 5 miles, but has a lot of change in elevation. It goes up to a plum forest park in Taura that has a really great kids' playground if you are taking younger kids as tag alongs. We hiked this one by taking the train to Taura and hiking back to the base. Lots of vending machines along this route, so you don't have to carry a ton of water. There are also drinking fountains and bathrooms at both parks where you can refill water.

I also like the Dollars to Yen blog for hiking and park/playground ideas. The blog author lived in Ikego for a couple years and recently moved down to Okinawa. She has posts with good pictures of several of the local trails.

Books in the base library that are useful include 40 Day Trips Around Tokyo and 40 More Day Trips Around Tokyo as well as Trails of Two Cities. Another fun book is Kamakura: Fact and Fiction. This has wonderful history tidbits about what you will see all around Kamakura. All of these are in the Japanese interest section beyond the internet computers.

Boy Scout Troop 15 in Tokyo has a series of historic trails laid out through the Tokyo metro area. If you hike three of the trails, you can then buy one of the historic trail patches. (Trails are about halfway down the page.) This page also has a good reference for plants and poisonous animals in Japan.