Here are the mountains at Hodaka; you're seeing from far away the view that tourists flock to gawk at in Kamikochi. Look for a discussion of that trip in a future page on this site (and a brief mention on the Alternatives page)...

The short route back is to bomb straight down along the highway (route 158) into Takayama. The road is fairly wide and, though it can get crowded, not bad at all. It's not all that interesting... but after where you've just been, nothing would be...