Gray View of Kyoto from Mt. Otowayama

Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Not Much of a Sunset

Mt. Otowyama (音羽山), Kyoto Japan

I've found a new place to try to get nice sunset photos of Kyoto from. Sort of.

For years my go-to place has been the Shogunzuka, which I first posted about almost
eight years ago, but have posted about
many times since. It's a 5-minute drive from my place on a high
hill (small mountain?) over eastern Kyoto.

The small mountain it's on is the little bump going across the center of
the shot above... the mountain I'm on for the shot, Mt. Otowayama, is 593m
(1,950') high and 6½ km farther away. It took me about an hour
fifteen minutes to ride my bike there
this evening. I went in hopes of a nice sunset, but there were only gray
skies in anticipation for a typhoon passing by in a day or two.

Maybe next time.

Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2800 —
map & image data — nearby photos

My Ride

I'd not known about the place until yesterday when a friend

posted
a photo from the top on Facebook. So today I gave it a try.

One really needs a mountain bike to get there. A closed mostly-paved
road gets you close, but the last little bit is a mountain trail. I had to
push the bike on a few sections of extremely steep trail, but otherwise
could ride most of the way.

I was gratified to break my record on a few of the smaller hills on the
way there and back. Getting the “PR” (personal record) on a ride is sort of
addictive, but also a diminishing resource. I made one today by just one
second, so further records will actually require some effort on my
part....