Newsletter August 2009

1 MILLION VISITORS! Welcome to yakumonkey.com – the home of Yakushima: A Yakumonkey Guide. Most tourists come to Yakushima island for a sense of adventure and in these pages and the Yakushima guide you’ll find lots of tourist information to help you create that special magical Yakushima adventure. In fact

There are many beautiful hiking trails in Yakushima both long and short. In my guide book (nudge! nudge!) I detail and map 15 different trails from all over the island – Yakusugiland, Shiratani Unsuikyo, Arakawa trail, Okabu trail, Yodogawa trail, Kusugawa trail, Onoaida trail, Mt.Mochomu trail, Mt.Tachu trail, Mt.Aiko trail,

In mid Jan snow fall at Yodogawa trailhead was at 15-20 cm. The Yodogawa Hut was surrounded by 20-30 cm of snow and reached -3℃. Hana-no-ego Marsh has been under 30-40 cm of snow and with wind chill reached -15℃. The snow was recorded at 30 cm around Wilson Stump

The Arakawa Trail Entrance Shuttle bus. The stretch of road between Arakawa junction and the Arakawa Trail Entrance is closed to traffic and walkers between May 2th and 5th for 4 days and July 7th and Sept 22nd for 67 days. The only way you can get to the Trail

A total eclipse of the sun on Yakushima will begin on July 22nd 2009 at 9.37am. The sun will be completely eclipsed between 10.55-11.00am and the whole process will finish by 12.23pm. The numbers of visitors to view this in special areas on Yakushima have been restricted to 4,500 and

Filling in Yakushima’s blanks: Mapping remote island’s wild, lush mountains a 5-decade quest by Akiko Yoshinaga (Yomiuri Shimbun) “The moss is much paler than usual. It hasn’t rained much, so maybe it’s not getting enough moisture,” Itsuo Ota, 69, said as he felt the moss growing along a mountain path