Whilst on Hachijojima, I managed to hike both the island’s mountains. The mountain that dominates the island is known as Hachijo-Fuji: the Mount Fuji of Hachijojima. You’ll need a vehicle to get to the starting trail point.
We had hired a car, and we missed the start point of the trail and ended up driving around the whole circumference of the mountain and got a 360 degree view of the island.
The island’s airport landing strip:
Managed to drive back to the start point where I embarked on a short solo hike to the summit. It’s not so much a hike, as a giant stairmaster.
Destination: Mount Hachijo-Fuji summit:
The actual trail starts quite high up the mountain and is a series of steps – all 1,280 of them!
640 steps at the halfway point!
Step 1,100:
Getting closer, step 1,200:
All 1,280 steps done!
Here is some of the scenery I enjoyed on the way up:
And more steps:
The island coastline:
Once you climbed up all 1,280 steps (which I did in about 35minutes), you can then walk around the whole mountain crater. It was once a volcano.
You’ll need to wade through bush and scrubs to walk around the whole crater. It was a pretty awesome hike. Definitely one of the better mountains I’ve hiked…although it’s not really long enough to call it a hike.
It was so green, lush and overgrown with trees for what was once a volcano. In the centre, there was also a small pond/lake.
The views were pretty splendid!
The tiny lake in the middle of the crater:
Follow the trail:
Reached the highest point:
View of baby Hachijojima:
Steep cliff edges:
The walk around the entire took me 90 minutes (and that was stopping for a lot of photo taking as well).
Then had to climb back down all 1,280 stairs (somewhat faster than going up them!)
Definitely one of the highlights of Hachijojima island. (A pleasant 2.5 hour hike up around Mount Hachijo-Fuji).
Hiking is definitely one of life’s free pleasures.
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Memoirs of Aleisha 
Hi it was great article indeed! We are promoting Tokyo Islands including Hachijojima to non-japanese people. We shared your article on our FB. If you don’t want to, please let us know.
Hope you still go around and enjoy traveling!
Sincerely,
Tokyo Islands Team
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