Hello there!

I went to a trip to mount Takao and I wanted to share my thoughts how was the climb, the people, the nature, the difficulty, was it fun?

First things first the planning, how can we have a safe and fast travel that far from the center. I used a japanese site which helped me a lot so I just share my thought on which information has been helpful or confused me during preparation or after the hike.
The site I used: GoodLuck Trip 高尾山+one

【高尾山の交通ガイド】都心からのアクセスとお得な切符がわかる！
This article was about how can we reach the mountain.
Well as for me I live in Meguro so I choose the Keio line from Shinjuku station to start my trip. There is no transfer, the start point is shinjuku so you can sit during the ride. It was perfect. Except I fall into the website’s trap so do not say I did not warn you.
It is recommended me to use the Mt.TAKAO号 train which has no stop between shinjuku and mount Takao, have a reserved seat and faster and more comfortable than the Keio one.
That is all true and fine, but for me I just wanted to save on my money.

The simple ride is 430JPY and you must buy an extra ticket for the seat (410JPY) so it is actually dobuled the price. I thought 410JPY ticket price inculeded the ride ticket as well but no. I could cancel it fortunately(you can cancel it 10 minutes before the ride), and have a refund. But I lost 100JPY for the cancellation, but it worthed it, the normal train is far too good to be waste the money on luxuary. The time difference is about 10 minutes so I would optu for the Takaosanguchi train.
As for the caution for the Keio ride, not every ride goes to the mountain just the one titled to Takaosanguchi. Also Takao station is also fine but it is 30 minutes walk from the start point.
Choose your suitable option.

【高尾山の登山コースガイド】難易度・所要時間・魅力を網羅的に紹介！
I also used this article for the actual hike.

At the top of the article, you can see the routes was named 1 to 6 and plus two courses. Also there are stars which are resemble the level of difficulty. I thought the five and six stars route is for pro hikers, like when you have to climb rocks while grabbing onto a rope or there are dangerous parts of the route like walking beside a great ravine or walk through a river or something like that, but the only difference was the quality of the ground. The high stars means normal soil footpath(6), which I account as usual grounds for hiking and low stars for stone pavement(1). As I did not now what the stars are represent and this was my first hike alone in Japan, I choosed the most easiest one number 1 route. Number 1 route was really pleasant, there were families, some people with dogs, old couples maybe a little crowded, however I did not go this far to be pleasant about the hike, I needed some adventure, some alone time, so halfway I turned left to the number 3 route, which was more quite, no people and soil ground with just me and mother nature. It was perfect. I choosed over number 4 because that route has a swing bridge, which is loved by the kids so I choosed the number 3 for some peace and quite. Also number one route upper half is going through a shrine so it can be nice if you do not mind the people around you.

To reach the top it took 1 and a half hour, not bad. Good things were a big and clean public toilet, drinkable water fill-up point, information house with pictures of the routes and a written weather forcast, food vendors and a great view of the mountains. On the other hand, in the afternoon it can be real crowded. That is why Japanese people do not like it that much. Because of the popularity of the mountain, as of the closest hiking place to Tokyo, with an easy path, with lots of people all round the year. I went in the morning, I start climbing at 8 and reached the top at 9.30, there were people but not unbearably much, so it was great. I have a breathing and thought It was too early to go back so I continued my journey.

I went until the station of 小仏峠, where was a nice dining place, with more reasonable price than at the first top. I had hot amazake. It was delicious. Also they had two kind of miso soups and drinks. The staff was really nice and chatty. There was also a medow nearby where I could lay down, sunbath and relax. Through the jurney to this point you can spot Fuji san every step of the way, and as I am kind of a fan of taking pictures of Fuji san from various places, it was a really nice experience.

From this point you can choose from three options. First one, go to the lake named 相模湖. There is a bus station, so you can go back by bus, but one point to be awear of that there are less scheduled buses, which can mean a long wait for the bus. Second option, going to the end of the tour. I really wanted to go to the end but there was a sudden rain shower so decided to have the third option which is to turn back and walk to the station by foot. For the descend, I choosed 稲荷山コース course. It is not that hard if you have experience of hiking in a forest, so I was very pleased with it (really do not understand that 5 stras..). Also halfway there was a really nice spot to see over Tokyo. I also made a dog friend in a chiwawa, so if a small dog can climb to this point, we should not have a problem with it either.

The last note is that there are dangerous aspects (animals) of hiking in a japanese forest.
As for my first hike I was very caotious for every noise or things that I see during the hike.
First of all yeah bears. There had been occurences with them during the hike so someone should be prepared before go into the forest. If you travel alone the best option is a small bell to put on your bag or clothes. While you are walking it bump into any part of your stuff, so it will do the trick without speaking loudly.
Also you should not forget about snakes. There are two type of snakes who do have poison, so we need to be careful of that.
I was lucky enough that I did not encounter any of above.

Overall, I had a fun hike, so I definitely want to come back and hike using other routes or do with it friend. All in all, thank you for reading my article! You can use different sites or methods to climb Takaosan, but I hope my thoughts on the topic were useful. Have you any thoughts let me know in the comment section.
See you soon👋