Summer/Fall Japan Hiking (and Baseball) recs?

[NBABUCKS1]

Hey all-
Had a phenomenal time in Japan this past winter and want to take my wife over. We both love hiking and baseball. Wondering if anyone has any recs?

Things we like: European style hiking with refugios at the top to grab a bite to eat (not even close to a necssaty but such a bonus compared to US), Quietness, Small towns with few tourists (and little english is ok), baseball, trains and other public transportaiton but can rent a car, and big majestic mountains.
Things we don't like: crowds/toursit (other than baseball and Tokyo- comes with territory), Super expensive tourist towns, seafood (lol).
Anyway our favorite parts of any vacation is ending up in some random town in the middle of nowhere mountains where little english is spoken. We are both big baseball fans and the baseball scene in Japan seems unmatched. In the little research I've done on the baseball side everyone says you need to goto Koshein Stadium.

[m2711c]

Check out Akita prefecture. It has what yer lookin for.

[m2711c]

[AmmergauerTele]

I remember hiking in the Japanese Alps above Hakuba and they had huts up there. This was back in the early 2000s.....interwebs was just getting info out there. Really cool experience, awesome views. If I remember correctly treeline is around 5,000ft and tops are around 9,000. Once I think we went to Kamikochi National Park and camped/hiked and they had a bunch of "wild" somewhat tame monkeys - it was surreal. Avoid Fuji. The equivalent of climbing the world's largest ashtray. Like the US, as soon as you venture five minutes down the trail it gets quiet quickly.

[gaijin]

I PM'd you some small ideas. Baseball schedule-- https://www.japansportsticket.com/?u...1_1&utm_id=136

[NBABUCKS1]

Thanks gaijin!

I kind of fucked up w/r/t flights and didn't look at baseball schedule but current plan is to :

- Land tokyo at 4 pm, sleep.

- Next day take train to Osaka to goto Koshein stadium for game, stay night osaka

- take train back to tokyo to goto game at Meiji Jingu, sleep tokyo

- then head to mountains.

Incredibly dumb itinerary but I've been told not to miss games at both those stadiums...so.....

Kind of thinking headed to chubu sangaku for a few nights for day hikes then another spot. Idk.

then on backside hit up a game at zozo marine and maybe belluna dome. (i don't know any of the team names)

[CascadeCrudSkier]

Depending on your pain threshold I would consider just pushing from the airport in Tokyo straight to Osaka or Kyoto for the first night. You can still catch the shinkansen and be in Osaka a couple hours after landing. It seems wasteful to travel down just for the game and not see the city. This would at least get you the morning to explore the castle or countless other areas. Bypassing Kyoto is a major miss.

Your request for peaceful mountain villages to hike out of does not really narrow the search down, that is like saying you want to go hiking in the Alps but do not want to be near a city. Are you trying to still stay on Honshu? Within a couple hours of Tokyo? I would lean towards Hokkaido in the summer to decrease temperatures and rainfall, northern Honshu or Nagano/Niigata for a fall trip. Nozawa Onsen and the Myoko area have a lot of good hiking opportunities in the fall, so does Hakuba into the northern Alps. Even Hakuba will not be crowded unless you are there over a holiday weekend. Nikko is worth checking out if you want to stay near Tokyo, though the town itself is a tourist hotspot. As soon as you depart the main town and Unesco site you will hardly encounter a soul.

It is also worth considering finishing off your trip in Tokyo for a couple of days and hiking during the day and enjoying the city at night. I did more trail running than hiking while living in the city but you can jump on an early train, head to some obscure trailhead, run/hike for half a day, eat and clean up at an onsen, and then catch a train back into the city before dinner. I was usually with a group so did not have to worry too much about navigation but it was best to travel between two stations so you could cross a lot of terrain. Most of the good stuff is NW, W, and SW of the city.

[NBABUCKS1]

Thanks Cascade.

My threshold is great. My wifes is awful. Agree on the wastefulness but literally everything I read is that you have to get to Koshein Stadium and this is our only window.

Good recs on hiking. We are going to stay on Honschu.

Absolutely going to do two nights in Tokyo on back end. Interesting take on day hiking out of Tokyo, but we want semi peaceful countryside for some nights.

Thanks!