Koyasan - Cable car closure, bus options?

Hi there,

My wife and I have booked a temple lodging for the night of January 21, 2019 on Koyasan. We will be hiking up the Choishi Michi trail from Kudoyama station that day, in order to get to the temple.

The next day, we would like to try and get to Nagano (via Osaka), but it's unclear if that is doable. In particular, this website notes that the cable car will be closed (and that buses will take it's place). However, when I go to the bus line page (Nankai Rinkan) they seem to show that they don't even operate during January and February.

Surely there is a way to get up and down the mountain in January 2019 without renting a car. Does anybody have information on what buses will be running (the ones reportedly replacing the cable car) and what their schedule will be in January?

Thanks for your help!!

This is the announcement of the official site.

http://www.nankai.co.jp/traffic/info/cablecar.html

バス代行輸送および列車運行の詳細については、2018年10月ごろに改めてお知らせします。

We will announce about the substitute bus and the train going from Gokurakubashi in detail on October 2018.

Therefore just wait until October. As you said, of course they will serve some kind of transportation in this period.

frog1954, thank you very much!

Hi!

Many many many years ago (like November 2002) I was in Koyasan when the cable car was closed and needed to take the bus. I only had to use the bus one way (the cable car was back up when I left) but the bus was pretty much right there and waiting when my Nankai line train arrived. I want to say I was probably on some sort of limited express, but again this was '02. I would not be surprised if the buses are timed to make the limited express trains.

The only reason I really remember the bus is because it was one of the only times I've ever in my life experienced motion sickness outside of being pregnant. I have a pretty strong stomach and even now can go on rides like the Spider, the Scrambler and the Tilt-a-Whirl at least once with no issues (and back then it was more than once in a row.) So if you're sensitive to such things I would recommend taking something or at the very least don't read on that bus.

Enjoy!

rkold, great. Thank you very much!