Sup /out/,
I'm a gaijin living in japan. I want to head out to Hakone area for the first time and go hiking and exploring for a day or so. Any tips or pointers, or great spots from people who have been out there?
Also Im looking for some good maps online to print out but not finding many large images
Cant help at all but I've read that japanese people use yahoo or something else so probably why you can't find anything on google about it.
When I lived in Japan, I got /out/ on quite a few hikes in the Chiba area, so while I can't give you suggestions on Hakone, I have some overall pointers for hiking in Japan.
First, it's really hard to find info about Japanese hikes in English. Do you know Japanese? It helps to looks for ハイキングコース (Hiking Courses) in the area that you want.
Here's one for Hakone:
http://www.hakone.or.jp/hiking/
Looks like you chose a good spot for hiking since that website says there's 24 courses in the Hakone area. This should be a download link for the map for Hakone hikes: http://www.hakone.or.jp/hiking/pdf/hike.pdf
But just in case you haven't gone on any hikes so far in Japan, be prepared for much less maintained trails than ones in the US. A lot of the ones I went on were incredibly rockey, even becoming bouldering at times. Even the path up Mount Fuji! Though that led to an even more enjoyable experience desu
Oh also, transportation out there can be funky sometimes. If you happen to be using google maps, sometimes it's best to just have it lead you to the closest station. Once you chose a trail, try checking for independent shuttle buses to the trailhead.
Enjoy your time exploring!
I hear Mount Takao is also good for hiking and day trips out of Tokyo.