hey all

new to the site and soon to be new to japan. looks like i'm going to be situated somwehere in okayama prefecture (likely either tsuyama or kurashike) and am looking for any beta on climbing in the area (or mountain biking, snowboarding or surfing for that matter). i've been told of a nice limestone sport crag an hour or two outside of okayama city. any more info on this place would be useful.

greg

The red guide, titled "nihon freeclimbing rutoshu" in Japanese and "20 Japanese Climbing Areas" in English, shows a limestone area called Bichu-cho. Presumably that's the one you heard about.

Access without a car is reportedly difficult, according to the guide, involving multiple buses, after a train ride. Access by car is reportedly easy.

As of the date of the guide, most of the routes were in the 10, 11, 12 range, with very little easy stuff.

Haven't been there myself, but it looks like nice climbing in the guide pictures.

I can photocopy and send you the guide section, but it's Japanese only. Let me know if you want it. It's also likely that one of the newer 100 Japanese Climbing Area series covers it, but I don't have the relevant volume, so I can't tell you for sure.

Let us know what you find.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tokyo bill,

thanks for the info tokyo. bichu-cho does sound like the place i've heard about. steep hard limestone routes. just waht i'm looking for. i wouldn't worry about copying the guide for the area, though i may hit you up for that later, once i arrive in japan. if anyone has any pics of this area, i'd love to see what it looks like.

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yo samurai, i was climbing up at the Bitchu-cho area about 3 weeks ago, it`s called `Yozudake free climbing area`. By car drive to Takehashi, and its about 12klms from there following the Takahashi River, one or two turn offs though. It`s a sweet place with a climbers cabin at 500yen/night, and a camp area next to that- dunno the price if any? Lots of sport routes and a long boulder section along the river, fishing looks ok too, if you follow the average take size in Japan- ie: not very big!! Most of the routes are on maps in the cabin, and there seems to be a fairly consistant community of climbers that frequent the area, i`m heading up again this week-end for a better sniff around, later- Dave