Mountain hike around Kawaguchiko lake

We wanted to do a walk round the mountains surrounding lake Kawaguchiko. The tourist office gave us a route, which we thought we could make circular by extending the time a bit. It was meant to take 6 hours, but I thought it would take a bit over.
We took the lazy option up the first bit using the cable car. The views look very similar to parts of Switzerland, with pine trees and steep sided slopes.
At the top of the cable car you get a great view of Mount Fuji. Took a few snaps and started the walk. We hiked for about 4.5 hours up to Mt Mitsutoge. Amazing views one one side into distant snowy mountains and on the other side was thick cloud so you could not see a thing.
On our way down, the path which we were meant to be on disappeared, so we took a 'short cut' to a connecting path, shown on the Maps.me app. These short cut decisions are known in my family as a 'Teddy Tour' as my dad often navigates by maps based from 1846. Often overgrown, but always fun when you finish them.
On this occasion we did find a path relatively quickly, but it had not been used in many years and was heavily washed away. Probably by the Typhoon a few weeks ago.
Walking down this path we found a chap re building it, he seemed very surprised to see us.
By this point it was starting to get dark. We found some big waterfalls by phone torch light and got back to civilisation.
At the 8 hour point we got to within a few hundred meters of our hostel and sat down at a Pizzeria, to rest tired legs, and have a well earned beer and pizza. Job done.Read more