Suicide Forest!!

We actually made it to Aokigahara Forest, aka the Suicide Forest! For anyone that saw the movie earlier this year, it is exactly like that in real life! The forest is at the base of Mt. Fuji and is growing out of volcanic rock. There isn't any soil on the forest floor - it's just volcanic rock, moss, and gnarly tree roots. It's very difficult to walk around, but we did anyway!

There are caves in the forest too, that you can tour, and we did a couple of those. They give you a helmet to wear, and you go yourself through the cave without a guide. It was very neat and pretty. I was dying to find the famous trail head that was in the movie and that you always see when you google "suicide forest." I know it's there somewhere, but we couldn't find it. We hadn't planned on going to the forest the day we did, it was a last minute trip, so we hadn't researched at all before we went. Next time I will be prepared and have a better idea of where that trail head is.

While we were there, we parked in a gravel area on the side of the road because we saw a trail. We started down the trail into the woods, and the path ended after 15ft. Well! We decided to keep going, and just keep the car in sight so we didn't get lost. After about 10 more feet, we started seeing trees with twine tied to them, and the twine leading off in various directions into the woods. These are put there by people who aren't for sure if they want to fully commit to suicide, so they can find their way out if they change their mind. We chose one and followed it for about 30 minutes. The end was nowhere in sight, it just kept going on forever, deep into the forest. We stopped when we heard a voice on a loud speaker back toward the car. We couldn't understand what they were saying since it was in Japanese but it was being blasted into the woods, so we hurried back to the car. Once we got there, there were 2 park rangers waiting for us, and immediately started questioning us. They were concerned as to why we were in there and we used a translator on our phone to let them know we were just hiking and sight seeing. They were satisfied with that, and left, but we took that as our cue to head on out for the day. We will return someday! You are allowed to hike there, but you have to stay on the trails, and we weren't on a trail. Oops!

We saw the twine trails, but no tents or people, but I'm very curious to get back. The forest is so mysterious and just draws you into it. I hated to leave because I could have seriously stayed all week in there. I loved it! Despite being a popular place for people to go when they feel hopeless, it's a beautiful place and one of my favorite places.