Stones of Unebi

Yesterday I decided to hike to the top of Mount Unebi, the tallest of Kashihara's Yamato Sanzan, a trio of famous mountains. Well, Unebi's only 199.2 meters. just over 650 feet, which would make it a hill in my book but these things are sacred so they're called mountains. It was a hell of a walk, I'll tell you that.

About halfway up, the path turned into these crude stairs. Some of it looked like old but deliberately placed logs. Other stretches seemed to be naturally formed stairs of root and rock.

I had to tread carefully. I imagine it's quite dangerous some parts of the year when the mossy stones get slick with slime.

Wikipedia says, "At the foot of the mountain are gneiss new rocks, and part of the middle slope and higher are biotite and andesite." I thought a lot of it was petrified wood, especially on some of the uprooted trees that exposed beautiful patches of root mingled with stone:

Here's a big pile with me for scale:

I saw this ominous looking tree on my way up:

Someone had placed an uprooted tree in the branches of two others to make a sort of torii gate for the ominous tree. Me again for scale:

Here's the view to the west when I reached the top:

I took a different route down. It was also a treacherous jumble of roots, stones, and dead leaves. I think this looks like a capybara eating a pancake:

And here's a last uprooted tree for you: