Tinian Shinto Shrine - Janurary 5, 2008

On Saturday, January 5, four of us set off to try to find the latte stone site near the Tinian Shinto Shrine. One of the first problems we had was getting a vehicle to get to the starting point. My truck was in the repair shop, so someone else needed to provide a ride. Judy had walked to the meeting place at Grace Christian School, and she does not own a car. Mitch and Erica showed up walking, but I asked them if they could provide a ride. They said yes, and we had to wait while they went home to get their car. After Mitch got her car, we loaded up and headed off to the Tinian Shrine.

The Tinian Shinto Shrine is the best preserved shrine on Tinian. It is just above the Carolinas Heights subdivision, but if you go the normal way to this subdivision, it is a little hard to find. Below, in the picture, is the sign at the shrine. Just behind the sign is the torii gate for the shrine.
There is a Japanese name post for the shrine near the torii gate, but according to Mitch, the sign is most likely not from this shrine. She thinks it is from a shrine that was in the old Tinian Town, which is now the current San Jose Village. I can't remember the name Mitch used for this shrine, but she was certain it was not named the Tinian Shinto Shrine.

(Just got a comment from Mitch, see the comment section to this posting, that says that the name of this shrine on an old Japanese map is Sumiyoshi Shinto Shrine. The Tinian Shinto Shrine is near the current church in San Jose Village. The base of the torii gate can be seen near the road that runs on the south side of the church.)

In the picture below are Erica, Mitch and Judy about halfway from the torii gate to the house at the top. The current house is made of cement, but when I first came to Tinian, in the early 1990's, the house was made of wood with a beautiful copper roof. Termites slowly ate the earlier house until it collasped.

While I was at the shrine, I marked its location on my GPS unit, just in case I happened to get a little confused in the jungle, which is easy to do. In the picture below, I am typing in the name for the shrine waypoint into my GPS unit. As for getting confused, when I first came to the island of Tinian, I happened to visit this shrine. I was fascinated by the jungle and decided to just walk a little ways into it to see what it was like. It took me over an hour to find my way out again!

As we headed off into the jungle, we followed a coconut crab hunting trail. It went through a lot of coconut palms with coconuts all over the ground, which you can see in the picture below. The trail was fairly easy to follow, but it soon ended in an area that was overgrown with vines and weeds, which I really did not want to travel through. So we turned around and headed back towards the shrine.

As we followed the coconut crab hunting trail, before turning back, we came upon the vine flowers we had seen on the Mt. Lasu trip. In the picture below, you can see two of the flower bunches and part of the vine they are growing from.
As we left the trail, we headed up the slope, which was fairly steep. There was one place that was really slippery and I had to help the other hikers up it. Below is a picture of me, Judy and Erica heading up the slope. It was not too bad of a hike up, except that it was steep.

In the picture below, you can see Judy and Erica climbing up the slope near the top of the cliff line.
The next thing I knew, we were at the top of the cliff. Below is a picture of the top of the Carolinas Plateau from a spot near were we had climbed cliff (not a real climb, more sort of a very steep walk up).
On the way to the cliff, we came across the saprophytic plants that we had seen on the hike to Mt. Lasu. In the picture below, you can see that these plants come in two color varieties, a red and white variety. While at Mt. Lasu, we only saw the white variety.
We followed the cliff line to the north. As we began to follow the cliff, we came upon several openings that allowed us to get great views of the village or Marpo Heights. Below is a picture of one of the openings with the village in the far distance. Below this picture is a zoomed picture of the village from the same location.

As we hiked along the cliff line we found a lot of stone walls, caves and defensive shelters that the Japanese had built during World War II. In the picture below is Erica helping Judy down one of the rocky areas near one of these WWII Japanese shelters.

In one of the shelters, we found the soles of shoes, as can be seen in the picture below. I have seen shoes in other shelters and caves on Tinian before. I really don't know why shoes were left in these areas. They might have been left behind when bodies were dragged out of these shelters or caves during World War II, but I really don't know.

In another shelter/cave we found what look like two electrical motors or generators and a hitch of some sort. They are visible in the picture below.

Here, in the picture below, is Judy climbing over a downed tree's roots that led into another shelter area. As you can see from Judy's appearance the hike was very strenuous with a lot of ups and downs. There were a few times where we had to turn around because the vines got too thick or the cliff was too steep.

We came upon an area where there was a huge overhang about 30 or 40 feet above us (see the picture below). At the base overhang were a lot of Japanese shelters. We followed the cliff line which led into a flat area with more shelters and caves.

Below is a picture of a six-inch shell that we found on the way to the shelters mentioned above, past the overhang. Someone had set it upon its base and it was also covered with vines and weeds until I removed them to walk past shell.
Once we got up into the shelter area above the overhang, I thought we would have to turn around, since I didn't see any other way down the cliff. I did a little exploring just to the north of the shelters and saw a small stone wall. Behind the stone wall was a tunnel that dropped down below the cliff. In the picture below you can see Judy entering the tunnel.

Beside the steep slopes, cliffs and loose rocks, the hike was also fairly hard because of the vines and pandanus plants. In the picture below, along with some of the other pictures in the hike posting, you can see some of the vines we had to work our way through.

In the picture below I am working my way around a pandanus plant. They have saw edged leaves and spines on their roots. I still have a small cut on the bridge of my nose from one of the leaves. I really did get tried of the pandanus leaves on this hike.
After the tunnel, we decided that it was time to head down to the road that I had spotted below the cliff we were on. The hike down was fairly hard and we had to climb down a few cliffs to get out. But, we also did find a few more interesting Japanese shelters on the way down.

As we neared the bottom, just after climbing down a fairly difficult cliff, we met someone that lived nearby. He had been out working on his farm and heard voices out in the jungle. He went to investigate and found us. Judy and I are talking to him in the picture below.
A short walk from where we met our guide out, we were out of the jungle and near his family's house. We asked him to take a picture of us as we ended this hike. In the picture below are the very tried hikers, Erica, Mitch, me, and Judy.

We didn't find the latte stone site on this hike. The best guess for its location is in the middle of our hike. I belive that we ended up circling it. According to the person that we met just before getting out of the jungle, the latte site is back toward the shrine. I will have to come up to this area by myself and see if I can find it. I can usually travel faster and easier through the jungle by myself.

As for the boonie bee count, it was only one, me. I got stung a total of six or seven times on two different occasions. I happened to have gotten stung below my left eye and had to put some Sting-Eze on it real fast. The Sting-Eze got rid of the pain and I think it even helped to stop the eye from swelling up too much. I did get stung once, a long time ago, on my upper lid on my left eye and it swelled the eye shut for a few days.

As always, I would like to thank Judy and Mitch for some of the additional pictures in this posting.

The next hike will be to the south end of Tachonga to visit the latte site there. We will also look at some Japanese bunkers and maybe explore a little bit more south from the bunkers. This is a fairly easy hike. The most difficult part is when we walk near the shoreline. For more information about this hike see October 13, 1007, hike. This hike will be on Saturday, January 12th. We will meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School.

Everyone is welcome to join us on these hikes.

Mt. Lasu Hike - December 22, 2007

On December 22, Saturday, four of us set out to explore the Mt. Lasu area. I used to take my BI201, Natural History of the Mariana Islands, on part of this hike, and I had just explored more of this area with James Carmichael on a private hike two weeks ago. I knew that we would find a lot of remains from World War II, and walk through some great limestone forest.

The drive up to the Mt. Lasu Shinto Shrine was fairly uneventful. The road had not been cleared for awhile and was really overgrown. This area was a popular tourist site (and may still be), but it has not been maintained for a long time. In the picture below, you can see Stacy, Yoko, and Mitch (Mitsue) starting on the hike to the cliff line below the top of Mount Lasu. Mt. Lasu has three cliff lines. I have only explored the top and bottom one. It looks like a hike to the middle one is in order for the future.

Traditionally, a visitor to the Mt. Lasu Shrine follows the steps to the main shrine where there is great view of Tinian and Saipan. The shrine was overgrown and the view was blocked by small trees growing along the cliff's edge. In the picture below, you can barely see the steps that lead up to the main shrine.

Right next to the Shinto Shrine is a small man-made hill. I had always thought it was a gun emplacement, but I later saw pictures of this hill, from World War II, with it holding a Japanese radar antenna. When this area was cleared, you could see a large flat round metal base sitting next to the west side of this hill. Today this metal base is covered with vines and not easily visible.

From the shrine, we headed south, following the ridge line. There is a great little saddle on the ridge that always gets a breeze, which was not needed today because of the steady winds. This saddle used to be open limestone forest, but a typhoon knocked down many of the large trees, and understory plants have grown up making it difficult to walk in certain areas. In the picture below is Mitch near the saddle.

After the saddle, we head back along the ridge line toward the shrine. As we started to leave the saddle, I happened to find a cluster of flowers that I had never seen before (in the picture below). This cluster was coming from a vine that normally grows in the tree tops.

The reason why we headed back toward the shrine was because I was looking for a tunnel that goes through the ridge. It is well hidden by a berm and you have to look carefully for it. Below is a picture of Mitch, Yoko, and Stacy about to enter the tunnel.

The entrance to tunnel is fairly steep and you have to watch your footing fairly carefully. In the picture below is Mitch in the steepest part of the tunnel. Once you are past the entrance, the floor of the tunnel is fairly flat.

Below are Mitch and Stacy walking out of the other side of the tunnel.

From here, we headed a little to the north to look at a cave which is very near the tunnel. On the way to the cave are some 6-inch shells. Most likely these are from U.S. battle ships, shot at the Japanese during the invasion of Tinian from World War II. In the picture below, Yoko is taking a picture of Mitch as she stands next to a shell.

The cave, next to the tunnel, is also man-made. It opens up into a good size room. Below, in the picture, are me and Stacy standing next to the entrance to the cave.

Usually, I would walk down the steep slope with my NMC class to a Japanese road that leads back to the shrine. But, today we were here to explore, so we headed south, around the slope to get clear of the rubble from the construction of the tunnel and cave. The picture below gives a good idea of how steep the slope is.

Just to the south of the tunnel are two caves and two flat platforms. Just to the right of Stacy, Mitch, and Yoko, standing on one of the platforms in the picture below, is a small man-made cave. I am standing on a second lower platform, while taking this picture, which leads to a second cave.

On the second platform were some metal support, as shown in the picture below. They seem to have a swivel base, and also attachments that would allow what they held to be swiveled up and down. I really don't know what they were used for. Next to the supports were what might be some 3-inch shells. They might also be some type of rollers, but I didn't look too closely at them so as to be able to really tell what they were.

Also on the platform where lots of bottles from the Japanese, left here most likely during the battle for Tinian in World War II. In the picture below, you can see Mitch and Yoko coming out of the second cave.

A little ways from the two caves discussed above, I found a little stone wall, which led into a tunnel. I decided to crawl through the tunnel and everyone else followed me. It is amazing what you can get people to do when you are the leader. Below is a picture of Mitch in the tunnel. It was a fairly tight crawl.

Below is a picture of me, taken by Mitch, outside the tunnel taking a picture of her. A lot of pictures get taken on these hikes!

After the tunnel we came upon a huge stone wall. You can see me in the picture below standing next to the wall, getting ready to find my flashlight to explore the cave that is most likely behind it.

I was a little disappointed with the cave behind that large stone wall. It was fairly small with one tiny room carved out of the cliff in its rear. Most likely it could have held 20 soldiers during World War II, but it would have been very crowded. In the picture below are Stacy, Mitch and Yoko in the small cave behind the stone wall in the picture above.

As we walked along the cliff line, we kept finding stone walls and what looked like craved platforms made by the Japanese during World War II. Most were natural shelters in the cliff line, but a few had man-made additions. Below is one of these additions to the a natural shelter. This one was fairly small and may have held two people.

Besides being steep, we ended up in some places were we had to climb down a few cliffs. You can see one of these small cliffs that we climbed down in the video below.

When I was hiking with James, we discovered a large cave. We finally got to this large cave and found a lot of stuff around it and in it. Here is a wheel hub that is slowly be surrounded by a nunu tree, Ficus prolixa.

At the entrance to the cave are some strange pipes, about 6 feet long, that have a spiral along their outer edge and a pointed tip. They almost look like drills, but I really don't know what they are. If anyone does, please let me know.

Inside the cave are a bunch of bones. In the picture below is Yoko inside the entrance of the cave. By Yoko, in the picture below, is a femur bone form a cow (on the rock near her knee).

Below is a picture of a skeleton from a cow that got into the cave and died. You also can see roots that hang down form the roof of the cave. This area of Mt. Lasu was divided into cattle ranches in the 1990's and earlier. As we hiked, we would come upon old barbed wire fences that had not been maintained for a very long time. Most likely the cow that died in this cave wandered into it a long time ago.

Besides the skeleton, there were a lot of pipes and 3-inch rounds in the cave, which are visible in the picture below.

While hiking, I sometimes would leave the group to climb up to the cliff to see if there is anything interesting. Usually I am only gone for five or ten minutes. One time after I went exploring, as I got back, everyone was sitting down having a snack, as you can see in the picture below. I had been gone less then five minutes.
We continued on a litter farther along the cliff and found a few more stone walls, but not much else of interest. So, I decided it was time to turn around and head back to the shrine. We dropped down to a more flat area below the cliff line, where the hiking was a little easier. This area was mainly limestone forest, with some secondary forest intermixed with it. These forests also had a lot of small understory trees in some places. These understory trees were mainly gulos and paipai.

In some places, especially next to umumu trees, were strange saprophytic plants blooming. I really don't know what these plants are, but they spend most of their life living under the leaf litter, absorbing the breakdown products from the decaying leaves. The only time you see these plants is when they flower. In the picture below you can see a lot of these plants blooming.

Below is a close up of the flowers of the saprophyte plant. You can see the small white flowers that this plant produces.

Below is a picture of the largest umumu tree, Pisonia grandis, that I have ever seen. The umumu is the largest tree found in the limestone forest. This one had three main trunks and must have been 20 to 25 feet across.

Below is a picture of me next to the tree, pictured above, to give you an idea of the size of this tree's trunk.

As we walked back to the shrine, I found the old Japanese road (at least I think it was made by the Japanese) that goes up to the shrine. There is even an old Japanese toilet next to the road! I did take a picture of it, but it didn't come out too well, so I will not be posting it.

Once we got near the shrine, we left the road to walk below the cliff that is near it. We found an old crane near the road. I really don't know if the crane was used by the Japanese or Americas. A picture of crane is below.

Below the hill that held the old Japanese radar antenna may be the antenna itself. You can see some of this antenna in the picture below. It is hard to see the wire grid that was on the metal frame, but it is there. The mesh was about four inches square. Near the antenna was something that look like a gear and axial assembly, that can be seen in the bottom picture below, which may be part of the mechanism that turned it. There were also a lot of other metal parts laying around in this area.

After visiting the crane and radar antenna, it was a quick walk up to the shrine on the old road. At the top of the ridge, there was an old cattle guard. Below are Yoko and Mitch standing on the guard. That is why I really don't know when the road was built. Most likely it was an old Japanese road that was used by the Bar-K ranch. The Bar-K ranch was owned and operated by Ken Jones from Guam during the Trust Territory days. To learn about Ken Jones, follow this link to an article in Time Magazine (click to see article).

From the cattle guard, it was a quick walk back to the Shinto Shrine. One of things that the vines, weeds, and grass have not covered up at the shrine is the marker in the picture below. I really like the tortise shell design on the bottom of the marker. Now if I can get Mitch to tell me what the marker says. (In a comment to this posting, Mitch says the marker has written on it "Lasu Shinto Shine".)

Below are Mitch, Yoko, and me standing next to the marker in the picture above. It was not too bad of a hike and I am not wet for a change. Of course, this is the start of the dry season and the hikes should be dryer for the next few month. Maybe, it is time to start exploring caves.

I would like to thank Mitch for some of the pictures in this posting. As for the boonie bee count, it was none. We all lucked out, especially me. I walked right through a vine that contained a nest, disturbing the bees. Luckily, Yoko saw it and stopped. There was even a second nest right next to the first one. I think those were the only nests we saw on this hike.

The next hike will be on December 29th, Saturday. We will drive into the first atomic bomb assembly building. From there we will hike north through secondary forest looking for the two other assembly buildings. Afterwards, we may visit Lamlam Beach, one of the American invasion beaches during World War II. This should be a fairly easy hike over level terrain. We will meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School as always.

Everyone is welcome on these hikes.
Please feel free to join us.