Last September we walked the length of the North Alps from Murodo to Kamikochi. This July I put up the photos.
Size is everything when it comes to mountain photos. You want them big to marvel at the vastness of the place and all the tiny details. Take the rock field on the Kamikochi side of Kurobegorodake. There are worlds in that field. Or the ridge to its right shining in the sun. You want these photos big.
(I've accidentally deleted some genuine comments when wading through a swamp of spam to get this thing back in order. Bit of a shame, but I remember what they said.)
Up near the peak.
No rock climbers on Mitsutoge's walls today.
A day for crampons.
An unexpected fog killed the views and deterred the crowds on Idiot's Ridge yesterday, making for an eerie atmosphere in a strangely snowless, unnaturally warm February Tanzawa.
I walked the million steps up in penance for city excess, out of breath, sore in the thigh and embarrassed.
Once up--hours later--the body finally purred, as we cruised the sasa-carpeted ridge between the mountains.
The old man made us udon in the hut. We came down the short route, concentration dangerously low from tiredness. The road out seemed to last forever, as we dreamt of sleep on the train home, hot baths, salon pas and shabu shabu.
The sun sets over Dublin Bay, seen from the Howth side, on another low winter sky.
Another Howth sunset.
Before the sun went down.
Happy New Year folks. We've fixed our comment spam problem and normal service resumes.
It was weird on Yari's little peak. The celebrant one, in all three of these pictures, (a) was drunk, (b) had just completed the 100 mountains, and (c) very nearly fell off to his death. Very amusing fellow, and quite an achievement in the non-greater scheme of things. He certainly amused me and will remain part of my Yari experience.
The faces have been silhouetted to protect the innocent.
What with the altitude and fear playing tricks with the head and the other characters who were up there, the peak had the feel of a David Lynch film.
Sugorokudake and Mitsumatarengeidake, Day 6.
Washibadake, another of the 100 mountains, seen from Mitsumata Sansou.
Another view of Washiba.
A lone hiker stares into the abyss on the Nishakamaone, the at times hairy west ridge route to Yari.
Yakushidake at twilight, the day after we'd gone over it in the fog.
For someone who has spent much more time in the South Alps, this trip showed me the beauty and sheer expanse of their northern cousins. And let's be clear: the "ultimate hike in Japan" is just one of any number of combinations possible in this vast range.
Another Yari view from further down the valley.
Japan's most exposed ladder, leading to the respite of Yari's summit. Never before have I seen a ladder treated with such trepidation and respect. Every face bore a different emotion. In this climber's case, like in mine, fear of death. She got a nice round of applause on reaching the top. For some reason I inspired laughter instead.
Yari on the clearest of blue mornings, Day 7. The day before we'd sat on its tiny peak, wondering how the hell we were going to get down.
Sunset at Sugonorikoshi, Day 3. Typhoon 13 had left us stranded, with winds so high to make the formidable Yakushidake impassable. There was nothing else to do but photograph the sunset.
Day 5. The hat reaches the peak of Kurobegorodake, a beautiful mountain in the very depths of the North Alps.
The infinitely-annoying-once-you-get-to-know-it Lonely Planet: Hiking in Japan calls the six or seven day hike through the North Alps from Tateyama to Kamikochi the "ultimate hike in Japan", "the hike every Japanese hiker would do if he/she had the time". Well, we've finally made the time.
Seven days walking the high ridges of the North Alps! Not everyone's idea of a dream holiday, and I'm sure we'll be stinking and half dead by the time we finally descend on Kamikochi for a bath, but I can't think of anything I'd rather do. Reports and millions of photos to follow. Here's hoping the ptarmigan's waiting and the weather god she smiles.
Brief respite in the fog covering Kinunuma Marsh.
One day to get there, to the onsen yamagoya Nikkosawa, an offroad wooden throwback to past eras. A place that doesn't whore itself for tourists. A place purely and simply for hikers going up to the marsh. No car will get you there. You have to go on foot.
A storm during the night, sheet lightning and the countdown for thunder. North Kanto taking a blasting from the tsuyu. All night the sound of rain battering down on the wooden roof, crowds of insects pattering outside the window, wanting in.
The intercom wakes us at 5.50 am for breakfast. Best be on the trail by seven the owner warns. Breakfast inedible, even for the adventurous eater I've become. Raw eggs, or half raw eggs, and natto.
Reading the maps, watching the storm through the window, and deciding to go anyway. It is, after all, our second time to try find this marsh. The last time we were thwarted by snow and a toothache-induced fever.
The hike itself less difficult than expected, done in sloppy conditions that remind us of Rishiri last summer. Nice to be back on the trail, breathing real air and forgetting the lives we lead in Tokyo.
Just under two hours to the top, and the first sight of Kinunuma, the mountaintop plateau marsh. It's disappointing. On a clear day it must be beautiful. A very Oze kind of place. Today it's as eerie and threatening as the Yorkshire moors. I think of Myra Hindley and look around for bears. A thick layer of fog at 2,000 metres so low it covers even the 40 marshes. Cold setting in when we sit down to eat our rice balls. A perfunctory walk around the planks, one photograph and back down into the boiling-hot mixed onsen at Nikkosawa again.
A lazy day in a log cabin with the kind of high ceiling you only dream of in Tokyo. Reading Tom Humphries on the 2002 World Cup. In Oku-Kinu, reliving the Keane/McCarthey affair. Humphries annoyingly targeting his audience, never letting himself go to far.
Into the rain early the next morning and home. A three-day washed-out weekend in North Kanto marking a return to blogging and the trail.
The dog wanted some of my homemade brown bread and cheddar cheese sandwich.
Le singe etait dans l'arbre.
A return to the mountains. For three days the gushing, roaring sound of the Kinugawa River.
But happy enough right where I am.
With the marathon training and the new job, I've been tied to Tokyo for a few months now. I'm not complaining: things are moving along nicely here and I'll be back out and about bikewise and in the hills soon enough. In the meantime, I'm reliving some old memories. These are from the Hokkaido trip last summer. Hokkaido really is the perfect place for a bike tour, especially if you're a fan of seafood, hot-springs and beautiful mountains.
Taken while sitting on that wall after just pulling into the port of Utoro after a stunning 40k stretch along the coast going out onto the Shiretoko Peninsula.
Another view from that wall, of the Shiretoko range in the background, with Mt. Rausu on the right. It was around about the time I saw that view that our bike tour began to incorporate a mountain climbing element.
Another view of that range from that wall.
A sunset on a barren stretch of road just south of Cape Soya Misaki, the northernmost point in Japan.
This is Cape Soya Misaki, the northernmost point on the Japanese Archipelago and one hell of a dump. We cycled 60k into a massive headwind that day to make it there and when we got there we were less than impressed with what we found. Neither the destination or the journey itself bore any resemblance to a reward. Headwinds, long distance on bicycles and shameless tourist traps in the middle of nowhere do not mix.
I must have spent an hour on the back of the ferry coming back from Rishiri Island taking pictures of the gulls. Climbing Rishiri in the rain had been the culmination of another successful Hokkaido holiday. It had looked like it wasn't going to be possible, but we made it at the last minute, just like we did in fierce winds on Asahidake, the last mountain we had left to climb in the Daisetsuzan range, the year before.
The peak marker at Jimba-san near the end of the hike.
Snow fallen on cedars.
Rumours of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
A concrete statue of a horse. Putting the "ba" into Jimba.
Snow may make your legs heavier, but it certainly improves the view.
It seems to be a much colder winter than last year, and yet there isn't a drop of snow on Mount Takao.
Reading this article about K2 in Outside Online, I came across the following passage:
"The magnificence [of K2] can take strange forms. Weeks before he summited, Wickwire was descending with Roskelley to Camp 3, on the knife edge of the northeast ridge, when he witnessed the Specter of Brocken, a rare play of light in which a climber's silhouette is magnified and cast into the center of a cloud, sometimes surrounded by a double rainbow—two perfect circles, one inside the other. "That was the only time I've observed it in over 40 years of climbing," he says.
I witnessed the Specter of Brocken myself this year on Kitadake, although I never knew what is was until today.
Here's Wikipedia's entry on the phenomenon, also known as the Brocken Bow.
And here are a few of the photos (click to enlarge) that I took of it on Kitadake. The shadows on the clouds in the first three photos are of the people waving on the ridge in the last photo.
Pampas grass lit by the strong Autumn sun. It's been beautiful weather in Japan all week. Today was perfect for walking the sasa and susuki coated ridges of the Tanzawa Range.
Got up at 5.45 on Sunday morning and headed off into the rain to Hakone to go up Myojingatake and walk the open ridge. Seemed like a stupid idea right up to about 11 o'clock, when the mountain started to kick in.
Best moment was sloshing up through a river of mud, the rain driving down, with Streams of Whiskey by the Pogues live at the Brixton Academy circa 1980 blasting out on the iPod.
Everest: The West Ridge tells the story of Thomas Horbein and Willy Unsoeld's pioneering ascent of Everest by the west ridge route.
Horbein and Unsoeld's accomplishments (first ascent from the west ridge, first traverse of the mountain, highest bivouac) stand alongside Hillary and Norgay's first ascent and Messner's later deeds (first climb without oxygen, first solo ascent, first alpine-style ascent) as among the greatest-ever feats on Everest.
You wouldn't know that from reading the book, because of its light, understated tone. It's so light, you'd think it was the story of two friends who went out for a stroll one Sunday on Mount Takao.
Everest: The West Ridge captures the ideals of a now-tainted American spirit: frontier adventure (where the battle is against yourself and the rewards internal), free, fun-loving spirit, quiet heroism, the idea of the "buddy" (where great but always unspoken loyalty lives naturally with constant surface piss-taking), taking on and surmounting incredible odds, the joy of competition, and most importantly, never taking yourself too seriously in the process. The ability to laugh. Driving ambition coated in a light, casual veneer. (Where did it all go wrong, George? Why does such a basically decent ideal spirit now sound so cliched and laughable? Even sinister?)
When I say this book is light, I don't mean "no lights on upstairs" light, either. This book is the work of smart people who know what they did needs no spin. It's an intelligent, page-turning read. It's smooth, too, finding the right balance between interesting tangent, attention to detail and suspense-filled narrative. Everest: The West Ridge knows where it's going.
As a bonus, for those into mountain photography, the third edition comes with 48 beautiful colour photographs, including as its cover Barry Bishop's famous photo for National Geographic of Hornbein and Unsoeld as two small dots on the immense whiteness of the west ridge. It also has some evocative portraits of the Sherpas and perhaps the ultimate sunset shot, Everest in orange. This is mountain photography at its very best, my friends.
A great book. I read it pretty much in one sitting.
In the afternoon, I went through the slow, lazy, loving ritual of packing. The older I get, the earlier I pack and the more I savour it.
There's a dictatorial pleasure to be had in jettisoning the loved but unneeded for the overall good of the pack. It's the pure pleasure of dictatorship without any of the repercussions. There is no need to consult others or to compromise. And if the dictated are things, they can't bear grudges or talk back.
Paring it all down, going back again and editing your first impulses, is vital: For two nights' camping at 3,000 metres in late-September Japan, the essentials already take up a lot of weight, and getting up to 3,000 metres will be so much easier if your pack is lean, pragmatic, and unemotional. Duties to fellow human beings notwithstanding, there may not be justification for extra pairs of pants.
As importantly, the physical act of packing triggers the inner process of mental preparation. Incessant obsessing. For Rausudake, it was the bears. For Yari, it's the exposed ridges and the 100 vertical metres to the top. Knife-edges and a spear.
The pack sits at the end of the bed, ready. The mind races to prepare.
Oze is not the most crowded place of natural beauty in Japan. That title goes to the Shiretoko Five Lakes, although you'd never tell from these photographs.
I hadn't planned to climb mountains at all this holiday, but sitting in the bay in Utoro eating breakfast, the ridge of the Shiretoko mountain range sharp and so clear in the morning sky in the background, it was too hard to resist. I had no boots, so I climbed in runners.
The weather was good so it didn't matter.
In fact, I felt as light and nimble on the trail as I ever have. The trail itself, as Ted said, was incredibly well maintained and the day beautiful.
There's a patch of 650 meters that is littered with ants' nests. Ants taste sweet. Bears like sweet tastes. Bears like ants. The Shiretoko peninsula contains the densest population of bears in Japan. Brown bears at that. More than 650 of them at last count.
The fellow explaining hiking courses at the Iwaobetsu Hostel warned all of us potential climbers about the danger of that part of the trail. It was almost as if he was encouraging people not to go. An old couple from Chiba in Hokkaido to climb the Hokkaido part of the 100 famous mountains pulled out the next morning.
I understand why. I had the biggest case of the butterflies the night before, and that 650 meters was the scariest short distance I've ever had in the mountains. But the bell must have worked because I didn't see any bears that day. And when you're tired enough you forget about them. I experienced exactly the same thing last year on Tomuraushi, which I still consider the king of the mountains of Hokkaido.
This year, though, I was more prepared.
If there's one thing I've learned about the mountains of Hokkaido, it's this: You leave early. I was on the trail before six. 1,600 meters in Hokkaido is the equivalent of 3,00 meters on Honshu, and you don't want to be (a) caught on the mountain after dark or (b) stuck up there in bad weather. And the best way to avoid both is an early start. Storms in Hokkaido, in my experience, happen often, and always seem to happen in the afternoon. That day was no exception. The skies opened around four, by which time I was already lounging safely in the murky bath of the Iwaobetsu Hostel.
The rocks at the top of Rausu are reasonably dangerous, though nothing serious really, and the peak was crowded with a bunch of group hikers, but all in all Rausu was a beautiful bearless hike in the green mountains of Shiretoko.
My closest friend in Japan reckons my face changes in the mountains. Without wanting to sound ridiculous, I feel different there and I don't know why. Bike tours, as great as they are, will just never compare.
Photos in the gallery.
I got very cold standing around on the exposed shoulder of Kitadake at 3,000 metres high waiting to take this picture. As I was waiting around sipping some whisky to stay warm, I thought of Mitsuaki Iwago, the famous and incredibly humble Japanese wildlife photographer, who once stood for five days in the freezing, freezing Arctic waiting for a polar bear family to come out of its winter hibernation. The footage he finally got was his reward. That level of dedication is the measure of Iwago.
Japan's highest campsite had no shortage of tents Saturday night. These were the ones that got there late and had to camp on the exposed ridge. Dangerous, I thought, but I suppose people have pitched tents in worse places.
I told Dessie I missed the low skies and wonderful sunsets common to Australia and Ireland and he stunned me with a simple, obvious answer that I had never considered. What do both countries have in common? Nothing to the west. California sunsets must be special.
Great scenes of excitement once again at the peak.
Despite all the weather warnings, the views were close to perfect.
Not quite the roof of Japan, but the second-best thing.
I wasn't lying about the view. My uncle photographs Fuji from the peak of Kitadake at 5.30 this morning.
On the South Alps ridge early this morning. How beautiful is that ridge?
Respect. Will I still be able to do this when I'm 70?
A successful return to my old friend Kitadake.
Another of the marshes of Oze.
The flower of the skunk cabbage.
Shining down like water.
Mount Shibutsu in the distance.
It's been another one of those nights spent watching another one of those scenes, hoping everyone you know there--extended family, friends, and family of friends--are all okay.
Last week I bought a Thermarest self-inflatable camping mat to replace my foam groundsheet. No more not sleeping on hard, stony ground, or waking up in the night with sore hips and shoulders and a chill running through from the cold earth below.
With the final piece in the camping puzzle in place, last weekend was supposed to be perfect camping. Sexy camping even.
And it would have been, if I hadn't forgot the rice.
There I was, long walk done, rain stopped, tent up, blanket self-inflated, cooker out, ready to go. Slightly high-end curries taken out of the bag. Miso soup, mochi, chocolate, tea, and milk. A drop of whisky. The sun setting over Ozegahara. Mount Shibutsu sharp in the distance in the fading evening light. I'd even remembered the tent pegs this time round.
But not a grain of rice. Sexy camping had just gone Irish.
It was then I had the plan. Maybe one of the mountain huts would sell me some rice if I brought along my bowl. Who knows, maybe they even provided it as a service?
Sure enough, the first one I went to had a sign for rice for 250 yen. Cheap as you like, cheaper even than the freeze-dried stuff.
I was mountain hungry.
Maybe if I gave an extra couple of hundred yen they'd give me a big serving. In I went. The girl behind the counter was young and incredibly tall. And she was radiant, beaming goodness. One of those rare people--just entering their aura makes you instantly warm.
I asked her for a big serving of rice and she smiled in understanding.
"Are you camping? It must very tough sleeping in a tent with the ground all wet? It must be very cold. Very tough."
I've seen this reaction before. Non campers the world over can't understand why anyone would ever choose to sleep in a tent. Unless of course they had no money. So their common assumption is campers must be poor. Especially in Japan. Not poor and dangerous. Poor and pitiable. Kawaisou.
She took my paper bowl and went to fill it. When she came back, it was so full it could have fed four. Overflowing wouldn't describe it. It was so full it was difficult even to carry back to the table outside. I gave her 450 yen and went to leave, but she stopped me, gave me 350 yen change and wouldn't hear of me paying any more.
I smiled, thanked her sincerely and went back outside.
Cooking the curry, I heard the inviting call of beer. End of the day beer. Curry beer. Back I went inside and asked for a Kirin. She went to get it for me and returned.
"Excuse me for asking you this, but are...are you from Belgium?"
I replayed her question in my head to make sure I'd heard it right. Some time passed.
"Er, I'm not. No. I'm from Ireland."
"Oh, thank you."
Awkward as ever in spontaneous, unscripted second-language social situations, I wasn't sure what to say next. So I just stood there, a benign but slightly bemused-looking mute.
A smile of reassurance told me the unscheduled and unwarranted social interaction was officially over, and she was sorry for having taken such liberties and intruded upon my space.
"Here's your beer. Thank you very much."
Glowing, baffled--and just a little disappointed--I went back to my curry and my new-found rice.
Serendipity. And confirmation. Fukushima people are just so special.
The walkway at Oze Numa. Only used in photographs these days.
Some tired souls.
Clear skies make beautiful lakes.
So beautiful it's almost evil.
For Tokyoites, this place is entrancing.
Mount Hiuchi refused me again, for a different reason than last year. Third time lucky next year maybe, and a good excuse to go back to Oze.
Last year, the only real rainy season mountain weekend sludgefest I did was Kumotori, the highest mountain in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Slopping through the mud and puddles of Chichibu for two long days, baptizing my new tent with typhoon waters, rain and wind battering it all night long as I dreamt of sleep inside--it was not your normal weekend for me or my novice tent.
But all in all, it was the best of hikes, despite sliding most of way down the mountain like a bobsleigher without his sled.
So I'm not really sure why I'm so cautious about tomorrow.
I'm off to the biggest mountain in the north of Honshu--in the sense that north of this one there is no bigger. The plans are in place and they're good plans, but Old Man Forecast is being stubborn. He's been issuing rain warnings all week and he's not backing down.
But he's been crying wolf a lot lately, too, the old bastard. His cockiness remains, but he's been losing his touch. Many times I listened to his confident warnings and stayed home, only to wake up to a smiling sun shining in through the bedroom window, mocking me and my faith in false prophets. However certain you state the future, it doesn't make it fact. And the sun doesn't dance to human tunes.
I really hope Old Forecast's got it wrong again this time, because the mountains in the north of Honshuu have the most slippery of stones. They even close one of them for June because it becomes too dangerous. If the skies open tomorrow, things could get really tricky, especially coming down. It's the age-old mountain dilemma: do you call it off and retreat or do you move forward? One thing about spending a weekend in the mountains is you have to be decisive, and not regret your choices afterwards.
My tent is now a wizened old-hand. It's stood up in the worst of conditions in places other tents never have to go. And if tents had free-will, I'm sure it would refuse to go tomorrow. Likewise, its owner has gained experience, and with experience become more cautious. That's the only plausible explanation I have for the trepidation today. That, or I'm secretly yearning to sit home and watch American Cable TV. And I don't think so.
But I'm not entirely pessimistic. There's also something natural and alive about having your fortunes so closely linked to the rain and sun. Moreso than sitting in an air-conditioned office, anyway. See you Monday.
One thing about having your own blog is you have complete editorial control. That means you can bore your readers senseless for days with your mountain photos. Especially when it's close season in the football and you refuse to indulge in aimless transfer speculation prior to the July 1 start date for signing foreign players. (Nobody mention the words beanpole or six million pounds, please.)
On a related note, I just found out my uncle, with whom I climbed Fuji in 2001, is coming back for more. He's 70 this year. It has to be Kitadake this time round.
"People who don't climb mountains--the great majority of humankind, that is to say--tend to assume that the sport is a reckless, Dionysian pursuit of ever escalating thrills. But the notion that climbers are merely adrenaline junkies chasing a righteous fix is a fallacy, at least in the case of Everest. What I was doing up there had almost nothing in common with bungee jumping or skyriding or riding a motorcycle at 120 miles per hour.
Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became a Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any other mountain I've ever been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium, and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking, above all else, something like a state of grace."
Jon Krakaeur, Into Thin Air
At last. People younger than me in the high mountains.
When tiring of the wide angle lens, there's always telephoto.
Probably the most relaxed fisherman in the world.
Photos in the gallery.
Unzipping my tent at 4.30 on Sunday morning in the campsite at Yumoto I had two thoughts: Birds start singing at three o'clock and I need a better groundsheet. The correlation between the two should be clear.
It was still too dark to properly read the weather signs, but it seemed cloudy. While cooking breakfast, the sun would start to rise from behind the lake and the day's destiny would become clear. Was Oku-Shiranesan, the mother lode of the mountains of Nikko, finally to acquiesce? Or had she already sent word to the weather gods to stop this impertinence in its tracks?
With some difficulty, I'd managed to organize a taxi for 6 a.m. to take me to the Gunma side of the mountain—her gentle side—from where I planned to ascend. As public transport in rural Japan dies out with increased car ownership, this great mountain has fared worse than most. A taxi was the only option. And even that looked highly unlikely for a while.
In an attempt to drum up business for the Shiranesan ropeway and himself, the talkative taxi man showed me pictures of alleged heavy snow on the mountain, which he said had been taken last week. Later, unashamedly, he told me he'd never climbed the mountain. He seemed to see no discrepancy in the two statements. Fair enough. I was grateful to him for getting up at six o'clock on a Sunday morning to take me to the trail.
When I left him at 6.30 at the trailhead in Suganuma, the morning sky was looking surprisingly promising. In rainy season Japan, you're always going to have a few clouds lingering over the mountains, but today they didn't look malicious.
The ascent was standard. My early start must have seemed like late morning compared to the climbers I passed along the way. Old men in flak vests lugging heavy tripods, groups of old ladies nattering up a human storm—there were no surprises there either. A little over two hours later I reached the upper valley and the lake, from which the mother lode finally allows you your first view. It was beautiful. The best mountains never hog the limelight. Tomuraushi taught me that. They feel no need to be seen by every tourist and his camera. Anyone going to Nikko can see Nantai-san, an impressive but ultimately second-rate mountain. Shiranesan probably thinks Nantai-san is a grandstanding, limelight-hogging whore.
In alpine scenery much like the mountains of Oze now visible to the west, I slowly climbed the steep course for the final hour to the top. By now, the morning was pure August-like summer with not a monsoon in sight. The sky was an access-all-areas day pass signed personally by the main woman herself. People started to appear from all routes like Scottie was beaming them in. Bizarrely, the rocky peak was as busy as Shibuya Crossing whenever I have the misfortune of having to go there. A group of students from Utsunomiya University were taking boisterous peak photos. Their cackle put the three o'clock birds to shame.
And it was only getting busier. Groups of 30-40 hikers marched single file up the many trails to the top. I found a piece of ground a comfortable distance away and started to cook a very early lunch. By half-ten in the morning there must have been anywhere between 200 to 500 people on or around the peak. Considering the difficulty I'd had just getting to the trail, I was a little surprised.
One top-notch Indian curry and two hundred photos later (you think I'm exaggerating, don't you?), it was time to descend.
Of the 500 or so people on Shiranesan that morning, 490 either returned to Suganuma or walked two hours to the ropeway. The other nine and brains here descended into Yumoto.
In my defense, I'd done the research. I knew well it was the difficult option, but the only other choice was trying to organize a taxi back from Suganuma, which seemed impractical and costly considering I'd left the tent and my unneccessaries at Yumoto. (I couldn't camp at Suganuma because the campsite there doesn't allow tents. Yes, you did read that sentence correctly.)
For any of you considering Shiranesan, I'll say this much: Yumoto is the most demanding descent I've ever done. It's not technically difficult or massively dangerous. It's just continuous and draining.
It was all pleasant at first. A steep zig-zag descent off the peak, some heel digging through a hard-packed snowfield, and on to Goshiki-Numa, the Five-Coloured Morass according to the official translation. Lake would have been a better choice of word.
Then things started to go imperceptibly off kilter. First, the party in the skies started to wind down, with dark clouds inevitably taking their rightful place in the rainy season sky. As they did, I discovered that the track marked in all the maps from Goshikinuma to Mae-Shiranesan didn't exist. It just wasn't there, no matter what the maps said. The already long course had just become an hour longer.
Retracing the route to the emergency hut, I made for Mae-Shiranesan. I was becoming concerned about time. I know. How can you run out of time on a day when you wake up before the sun?
From Mae-Shiranesan the descent was nothing short of vicious. Loose rocks, mudslides, protruding roots, and implausible steepness. For four solid hours, every step I took was on uncertain ground. I'm careful on difficult descents and my legs are strong, but I still went down four times. There's good reason why most people don't descend Shirane into Yumoto—the course all the English-language Japan hiking books recommend. Unless you're very experienced and super fast, take Lonely Planet's Hiking in Japan and especially Paul Hunt's book with the proverbial salt.
Okay, I'm exaggerating. It wasn't that bad. But ten and a half hours later, when I finally saw the top of the slopes of the Yumoto Ski Resort and the end of the course, I was a happy man. Ten and a half hours is a long time between drinks (and toilets for that matter). If that day was a microcosm of my life, I'll live to be a hundred.
And then, as if on cue, came the storm. As I walked down the ski slopes to my tent at the bottom, I wondered what it must have been like for Lee Trevino, the golfer who was struck by lightning twice. Poor bastard. The thunder rumbled as I found a reserve of hidden energy and completed the last miserable task—packing up and taking down the tent in a storm. For some reason I enjoyed the challenge of sorting everything out, though by the time I'd finished I was exhausted. And I know exhausted is a much overused word. Shiranesan is a beautiful mountain and I'd finally climbed it: I was happy. But happiness means little when you're that tired, and I'd had enough of Nikko for one weekend.
Walking toward the bus terminus, I realized I'd left my spats at the campsite. Running back to get them before the bus left, I spotted my first tanuki, who'd waited patiently until I—the last camper of the weekend—had left before coming out to claim the leftover food. He wasn't pleased to see me coming back and couldn't have cared less how many hours I'd walked.
It was then I heard the rescue helicopter flying overhead. Someone hadn't made it down.
Two things are fascinating me at the moment: the 1996 Everest summit disaster and the writing of Jon Krakauer. (I've been reading Into the Wild and it's a majestic book.)
So you can imagine my surprise pleasure when I found out yesterday that Krakauer was in one of the 1996 Everest summit teams. And he wrote a book about it. And the book was shortlisted for a Pulitzer.
Into Thin Air is Sagawa-ing its way to me as we speak.
The real sky.
(智恵子は東京には空がないと言ふ。
ほんとの空がみたいと言ふ。
〜中略〜
阿多多羅山の山の上に毎日出てゐる青い空が
智恵子のほんとの空だと言ふ)
Photos in the gallery.
Getting to the place where this picture could be taken was the plan for today. The place is the peak of Mt. Kurodake, one of the mountains behind Kawaguchiko. It's semi-famous for its Fuji/Kawaguchiko view. I got there alright, but Fuji and the weather just weren't interested in photos. So you'll have to imagine how good this picture could have been.
Then, on the way back from a tougher-than-expected day in the mountains, the sun was setting over Kawaguchiko. I miss sunsets living in Tokyo. So any chance to record them, even from speeding buses with the mobile phone camera.
A while ago, Ted promised me a story on the time he encountered a Japanese Brown Bear on the remote Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido. True to his word, he sent the story today. Scary stuff with an interesting twist at the end. I don't think I would have ever been able to leave the tent. If you're ever up in Shiretoko, take those bear signs very seriously. And bear bells are good.
I'd been walking for two days down the mountain range that serves as a spine for the Shiretoko Peninsula. Typhoons rarely hit Hokkaido, but a recent one had given the area a good soaking. I'd had a rough day, pushing along soggy trails, and it's entirely possible I'd nearly died a couple of times due to my own stupidity. I finally hit the trail end at dusk. In front of me was an observation point where cars can pull off the road, and between the guardrail and the cliff's edge I had enough room to set up my tent. With the fly facing the moon now rising over the sea, I'd have a lovely view with dinner. A half km up the road were some waterfalls, the water heated by the volcanos I'd been hiking over. It was great place for a natural warm shower.
The moon was up and full, so I used its light to make my way back to my tent. A few meters away, I saw something move above me on a slight ridge. A bear. Keeping my eyes on it, I slowly got into my tent, then into my sleeping bag for extra protection. I listened. Within seconds I heard a loud sniffing. Amazingly, this large animal had come down the ridge, across a gravel road, and over a guardrail within seconds, without making a single sound. I'll never forget the mushroom shape of its nose sliding against the tent wall. It moved around to the front flap. Ah! It was after my shoes, soaking and reeking after the wet slog. Suddenly, it fell down the cliff, breaking branches as it rolled down the slope. I started laughing with relief, but within a few minutes it was back. It lingered around for about ninety minutes in all. At first I was terrified. (They say that if you are within a fifty meters of a bear, you are as good as dead. These higuma (Japanese Brown Bear) are related to the killer grizzlies of both Alaska and Kamchatka.) After a while I began to get pissed off, wanting simply to eat and sleep after a long day walking. I reached into my bag for the bell I'd bought in Sapporo. At its first peals the bear tore off. Not long after I fell asleep, but not before ruining my water bottle since I was too scared to go outside to pee.
The next morning cooking breakfast, I noticed that the water I'd collected at the falls was yellow with sulfur. If I'd drunk any the night before, I'd have become incredibly sick. The Ainu up in Hokkaido consider the bear to be a god. Had one come to protect me? I pondered this as I walked up the road toward town.
Just below the peak of Tateyama, North Alps.
Mt. Shibutsu, Oze. A lovely mountain.
Looking down on the Katanokoya Hut, Kitadake, South Alps.
Lake Yu in Golden Week.
A hungry duck on the shores of Lake Kirikomi.
You might remember this scene.
Photos in the gallery.
The view from the peak was short-range.
Kenashiyama is only 17 kilometers away from Fuji.
I was wishing I had a wide-angle lens.
The site of an Edo-era brothel hours up in the remote mountains.
Apparently from when Kenashiyama had its gold-rush.
The things you see in forests...
Talk about omens. Even the signs looked like they were from
a horror film.
Portable foregrounds and the rotation of famous mountains.
Photos in the gallery.
At seven o'clock on Sunday morning, I walked into the women's onsen dressed only in my yukata. After a short period of making sure I wasn't a woman, the naked girl inside started to scream.
It's a mistake anyone could make, your honour. The night before that very same bath had been the men's onsen. I know because I was in it. Theoretically, I also know Japanese-style hot-spring inns alternate their baths: the men's bath becomes the women's bath the next day and vice versa, so guests can sample all the different baths on offer. And I know the kanji characters for "man" and for "woman." I just didn't know any of this in my half-awake state at seven o'clock on Sunday morning. So I did what anyone would do: I legged it. And only cocooned in the safety of the "new" men's bath did I start to see it as an omen.
On Saturday I'd had a lazy travel day. From Tokyo I'd taken a bus to Kofu, the gateway to the South Alps and the mountains of Yamanashi. A town of memories for people who love the mountains of Japan. This time I wasn't taking the cliffhanger bus to Hirogawara. I was about to enter the world of the Minobu Line.
I nearly missed the train, mind you. Kofu's ticket machines are still having difficulty differentiating between old and new bank notes, and their Suika machines are still learning how to be Suika machines. There was panic in the ticket area of Kofu Station. Panic, I tell you. The Tokyoites in the considerable crowd were cursing the bumpkin-ness of this backward little outpost, and flustered local railway workers were having difficulty keeping control of the unruly mob. I went to buy a newspaper and came back to order restored.
The Minobu Line cuts deep south through the mountains of backcountry Yamanashi to the coast at Shizuoka. It's a bizarre line. For one, there doesn't seem to be a road equivalent. The run-down train runs an arrow-straight course through valleys of rice-fields on the skirts of the mountains on either side for hours on end—and not a road in sight. And it was packed full of screaming schoolkids. There I was on a crowded train of kids ploughing deep through the rice fields into the mountains of nowhere, wishing I had earplugs. Get away to the wonders of pleasant, peaceful, rural Yamanashi, me arse.
I had reason to be seeing omens. Kenashiyama, the mountain on the menu, was 1946 meters, a considerable height for early May. In terms of mountain conditions, I was worried about snow and the dangers it brought. On a personal level, I had a much bigger concern. The Sunday morning a week before I'd injured my back playing football—one of those slow-burning injuries that didn't really take hold until later that afternoon. By 4 pm I could barely walk. For the whole of last week I'd been covering my back with poultices before sleeping, and though I was gradually recovering, I still wasn't sure if it would hold up.
But it was the start of Golden Week, I hadn't exercised for a week, and the weather forecast was good. I had to take the risk.
In the car from the hot-springs to the start of the trail, I regretted that little city decision and its implications in the here and now, wallowing even further in my own foreboding. This was remote country—really remote country—with big, imposing, "fuck off" mountains. The endless, winding, one-car road was as hair-raising as the road to Kitadake. The owner of the onsen, who was kindly driving me there, looked tense, and who could blame him?
This road also had a major x-factor, an even bigger omen than the ones I'd seen already. Fallen rocks. The road was covered in rocks from the mountains above. Big rocks, little rocks, rocks of all shapes and sizes. Whatever their kind, you don't want rocks crashing through the front windscreen. Especially on a road like this one.
I looked at the driver and knew what he was thinking. I was asking myself some serious questions too. Like what the hell was I doing here? What the fuck kind of way was this to be spending a holiday weekend? And when was it exactly that I lost the plot?
I seriously contemplated asking him to turn the car around and take me back. The only reason I didn't was it would have been embarrassing. And it would have meant asking him to come all the way up this scary road for nothing. Take care, he said, when we reached the trailhead, the look in his eyes suggesting he thought I was mad.
He turned the car and set off back for the safety of his family and his world of lower land, leaving me in the middle of nowhere in a deserted mountain range. I tentatively put on my pack and started up the trail. The only return to civilization now was to cross these mountains and arrive safely on the other side.
The slow ritual of packing.
Thursday night. Raingear. Torch. Cooker. Cup. Tea. Sun protection. Sunglasses. Map of Tanzawa. Photocopies of trail descriptions. Two water bottles. Old Uniqlo fleece. Spats. Hiking pole. Rucksack cover. Electronic dictionary. Pens. Music. Insect repellent. The camera and the hat. Old friends. The pleasure of unrushed, loving preparation. Extensions of the self. The plan becoming real.
The smile of the weather god.
Saturday morning on the Odakyu Line again. My Odakyu Line. Not a crowded weekday commuter hell. A route to happiness. Just after 6am. Youngsters, still well behaved, going home from the night before. Oldsters going to the work, others to the mountains. Sunshine coming in the train windows. Most getting off at Sagamiono, leaving the train and the ones that are left to go on to the mountains. A glance outside. Sun alone is not enough. The skies must be cloudless, too. And they are.
Putting in the hours
At the Okura bus terminus groups of lively old folks are doing stretching exercises. At any given time, Okura must have the highest population density of middle-aged and elderly stretchers in the world. To the mountain. Idiot's ridge. The steps. Quick Tanzawa rising. Already the surrounding urban world in view. Beyond the forest layer. Neverending steps. The engine of the body beginning to purr. Water. Chocolate. Sunglasses. Photos. A stream of friendly hellos, and the ones who say nothing. The spirits rising with the sun. Fuji suddenly appearing. Putting in the hours. Doing the work.
The quiet exhilaration of the peak
And then the work is done. The peak. Fuji to the South, majestic. Old men setting up tripods. Monks chanting sutras. Another bustling mountain hut. Hikers cooking up lunch. Photos, the inner happiness of a small but uncompromised achievement, and the hunger of a farmer coming in at lunchtime from the fields.
Ruling the world
A kingdom below you, stretching out before your eyes. A belly full. Energy levels restored. A camera half-full of new memories. Exercising the body and the mind. No computer screens or soulless offices anywhere. A return to your proper position in the healing, revitalizing and benign dominion of the much maligned sun. Memories of childhood, when you ruled the world.
The first signs of decline
Back into the forest layer. A darkening and cooling of the world. The first strains on the legs. Twinges of pain from old injuries. A mind beginning to wander. First lapses in concentration. The waning time. A time to avoid mistakes.
Enough
Late afternoon. Body tired. Forests no longer inspiring. Hunger back again. The thought that comes to me every time: "I can't wait to get off this fucking mountain."
The satisfaction of return to the place you wanted to leave
At the Okura bus terminal, they're stretching again. Satisfaction and winding down. The end of another day in the mountains. The bus ride out, pleasant as ever. A time for choosing your music. The happiness of going home.
Another picture of sunlit flora.
You have to work hard to get there, but it's always worth it. Does the peak of Tonodake have the second best view in Japan?
Hikers doing a band photo on another beautiful day in Tanzawa.
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Ojisan getting stuck into some serious group photography.
Blue skies and cherry blossoms.
Photos in the gallery.
I don't really expect anyone reading this to be able to answer this question for me, but you never know. It's worth a try. Is planning to climb Oku-Shiranesan (2578m, Nikko National Park) in early May unrealistic?
Sarushima, off the coast of the Miura Peninsula at Yokosuka.
A haven for the U.S. military.
That didn't escape the concretization of Japan.
Report on a lecture by a US historical geographer on the "creation" of the Japanese Alps and the distinct characteristics of Japanese alpinism and travel to the mountains.
I was particularly taken with talk of how Walter Westin's introduction of Western concepts of Alpinism has caused a transition from traditional Japanese worship of famous places (名所) to a more modern appreciation of remote places with beautiful scenery (風景).
Luckily, this transition isn't happening as fast as the historical geographer believes. Yesterday was a perfect example. I started off with 風景 on the ridge of Myojingatake and then had to pass through the town of Hakone-Yumoto, surely one of Japan's most famous 名所, on my way home. Beautiful and remote Myojingatake was all mine but empire of tackiness Hakone-Yumoto was crammed. There wasn't even a table to be had at the Cafe St. Moritz!
Call me a snob, but I'm all for 名所 as places to keep the hordes occupied and away from the real beauty of Japan.
Safety in numbers doesn't necessarily work in mountains. A group of 43 (!) elderly snowshoers managed to go missing in Japan's Tohoku region this week. They were found today.
I wrote before about the bus I took to Tomuraushi Onsen last summer, but never about the climb itself. I've always meant to describe it, because Tomuraushi was by far the most memorable mountain I've ever climbed. The memories are a little hazy now, but it's worth getting the story down before they're gone completely. Warning: This is a very long piece.
There's a campsite in a clearing about 10 minutes from Tomuraushi Onsen. Getting off the bus that evening, I bought myself a spot for the night and went to put up the tent. Unlike the typhoon two days before when climbing Tokachidake, the weather was perfect. I was hoping the next day would be more of the same. A couple of other tents dotted the campsite, a motorbike parked outside one. Having put mine up, I headed back down to the Onsen for a relaxing bath and to scout out the local knowledge.
The waters of Tomuraushi Onsen are special, among the best I've sampled in Japan. All I remember about the restaurant was that it sold deer burgers and the waiter was very camp. On a wall near the door was an interactive map of the trail to Tomuraushi, which lit up and talked to you in true Japanese-style when you pressed certain buttons. It was long dark now, but some hikers were still returning, hosing down their boots outside. They looked knackered.
The flashing map said 14 hours return to Tomuraushi, which was a little surprising but not something I really stopped to consider. After all, Tokachidake was supposed to take eight hours but I'd done in it just over four. At that rate, it would only take me seven hours or so to climb Tomuraushi.
All the same, I headed back to the tent for an early night, and planned to set out with the dawn the next morning.
I must have been tired that night, because I didn't wake until 6am the next day. Cooking breakfast would have taken too long, so I improvised with chocolate. After organizing my pack, I headed back down to the Onsen again to see if there were any taxis going to the start of the trailhead proper (I forget its name). If I could grab one, it would take three of those 14 hours off the trip, making things a bit more manageable. Hardly surprisingly, though, there was no sign of a taxi.
I'd come this far, so I was always going to go, despite the late start. The forest had a short-cut trail to the start of the trailhead proper. By road it would have been eight kilometers, but in the woods it was only three.
Early morning is bear time, and in Hokkaido that means higuma, the Japanese brown bear. The night before, on my way back from the onsen, a family of deer had suddenly leaped out of the woods right in front of me, sprinted across the road and crashed back into the woods on the other side. It brought back to me that I was a guest in these parts, sharing the woods and mountains with many other creatures. I wasn't thinking snakes at that time--just bears.
It was a beautiful morning and nobody else seemed to be on the trail. I tried to put the worries of bears to the back of my mind, and pushed hard up the steep skirt of the mountain, making it to the start of the trailhead proper in half the allotted time. Things were going well. From the trailhead proper to Kamui Tenjyo was the next stage. Like the early part of the hike, it was steep climbing through forests until finally I reached the ridge. A sign warned of a diversion. Checking it closely, it seemed to put another two or three kilometers onto the total distance. From Kamui Tenjyo it was flat walking on a wide trail for an hour or so, until suddenly it became open ridge. As the sun rose to take its rightful position in the morning sky, the view of the Daisetsuzan range was amazing. Pushed for time though I was, I couldn’t stop taking photos. I was walking on a trail cut out of head-high reeds, below which valleys and mountains were visible in all directions. It was stunning. I remember laughing with happiness to be in such a beautiful place.
In the distance was the noise of motors, which made me feel comfortable. The noise would surely work better than my timid little bell when it came to warning off any local bears. As I continued, the noise became closer, until turning a corner, I spotted two young workmen, uniformed, heads covered with white head-towels, bandanas around their faces. They were standing about 100 meters from each other, both holding chainsaw-like motorized reed-cutters, carving out the new trail. They must have been as surprised to see me as I was to see them. This was a remote, highland area well beyond roads. Unless they were dropped by helicopter, which seems unlikely, they would have had to hike at least two hours to get there, probably much longer if they were carrying all the equipment. I said hello to the first one but didn't get much of a response, so I continued on my way.
After an hour or so, the scenery changed again. I don't know how many times my world changed that day. The reeds disappeared, the forests returned, and the trail started to descend. I was going back down the mountain. The storm from the other day had been here too, and some of the ground was fairly slippery underfoot. Still worried about time, I hurtled down the mountain, probably faster than was safe. My next goal was a ford in the river that had appeared at the bottom of the trail.
When I reached the ford, I finally saw other hikers. A group of Japanese, clearly in good spirits, were sitting around eating chocolate, laughing with each other, generally having a good time. I imagine they had done the sensible thing, treated Tomuraushi as a two-day hike, and were on their way back on Day 2. Crossing the river, I saw the famous rocks of Tomuraushi for the first time. A friend of a friend, an experienced climber, had broken her leg on these rocks a couple of months before in a nothing accident. Just a minor lapse of concentration and then the feeling of broken bone. She'd been helicoptered out and was lucky. She didn't have to pay a yen.
I followed the rocky trail up the side of this other mountain, which may or may not have been Tomuraushi. I'd made another stupid mistake you see, leaving the map in the tent. I made so many basic mistakes in Hokkaido last summer, most of them on Tomuraushi.
After another hour or so, I was seriously hungry and slowing down. The trail changed again, from rocky trail to rocks-only trail. It veered off to the right, marked out by yellow paint-markers. I've never seen anything like it before or since. It was river of rocks in the middle of a mountain. The going was steady to slow. After twenty minutes of rock hopping the ground became a bit safer again. Up ahead was the ridge line, a clear and visible target. I pushed on, upping the pace a bit. After the ridge line, there couldn't be too much more to this mountain.
Like any ridge, reaching it was a minor triumph. It always means a lot of the hard work has been done.
There was a mountain to the left and one to the right. I was hoping the one to the left was my man, as it seemed closer. Turns out neither of them were.
Next was more scuttling across rocks. I'd long forgotten bears by this stage. After making it across them, the trail started to descend again. Suddenly there were people in sight on their way back from where I was going. I'd reached Mae-Tomu Daira, the valley before Tomuraushi. A strange rock structure lies in the center of this beautiful valley. It's a very idyllic place, Mae-Tomu Daira. It doesn't seem either high or remote.
I was beginning to understand the nature of this climb. It wasn't a climb. It was a journey into a center. And I don't think you'll know what I mean by that until you try it yourself.
Time was against me now, and I had a decision to make. At the pace I was going, I didn't have enough daylight hours to make it to the peak and get all the way back before the sun sets. I don't need to tell you why it wasn't a good idea to be in these mountains after dark.
But I'd come this far and wasn't going to turn back now, sensible though it would have been. I pushed on, up the final ascent toward Tomuraushi, whose peak I could finally see in the distance all these hours later. I was among the clouds now, and the sting from their moisture cooled me down nicely. It was a straight push from there. The last 30 minutes or so was fairly rocky, but there was nothing difficult. And suddenly, after all that time, I climbed up this one big rock and arrived at the peak.
Mixed emotions again. Nice to have made it, pity the cloud cover was obscuring the view, and hunger. A quick curry later, I was on my way back down the mountain, acutely aware of my race against the setting sun.
In the distance on the rocks I saw an Ezo striped squirrel, who moved just as I tried to photograph it. For all the time pressures, I just couldn't put the camera away.
Over the next few hours, I retraced my course, back through the different stages of rocks, down the valley to the ford, across the river, along it, back up the next mountain, all the while timing myself and setting targets for each stage. I needed to be at Kamui Tenjyo by five, I told myself, to have any chance of getting back down before dark.
The workmen were long gone, but they'd certainly improved the trail. I was almost running now, and made it to Kamui Tenjyo just after five. Despite missing this target, I was still almost on course. Or at least that's what I tried to convince myself.
Another decision awaited. Soon, and about an hour before the sun set, I would be at the start of the trailhead proper, and thus the road. That gave me two choices. Three kilometers down the forest trail, the last one in the dark, or eight kilometers down an almost unused road, the last five in the dark. I'm still not sure it was the right choice, but I went with the forest route.
I mentioned already that my preparation was ropey, but how about this: I didn't even have a torch. Can you believe that? I'm ashamed to tell you that. I had one hour to make it down the last part of the trail, which was supposed to take more than two. I had myself a situation.
Though I was willing it not to, the sun began to set, and as it did, the noises of the forest seemed to became more threatening, more sinister. Did I hear rats? Or were they snakes? I'll never know, I suppose. Despite rushing, I was going to have to do the last 30 minutes in the pitch black. Under cover of forest, with no lights anywhere, this was true darkness. If I was being honest with myself, I'd known this was going to happen since hours back, since Mae-Tomu Daira on the way up. And for those of you who do a lot of hiking, you'll know that last part, the very edge of a mountain, is often the steepest. Plus, it was wet underfoot.
The danger of breaking a leg was real. And if I did, how would they find me? You could panic easily enough in situations like that. I fell more than once, at times sliding down the mountain on my ass. I thanked the mountain gods for the ankle support in my hiking boots. Tripping over branches, falling flat, cutting my hands, and keeping going, trying not to worry about bears, snakes and rats. I had to get off this mountain.
Suddenly, almost unbelievably, I put my foot forward and touched concrete. I needed a few more steps before I let myself believe it. Yes, it was true. I wasn't imagining it. I'd arrived at the road. The feeling of exhilaration that overcame me then would not wear off until after my hot-springs later that night, when I had my first beer and the exhaustion that had been put on hold for so long finally broke through and demanded to be heard. I had decided my tent could make it without me for a night and had booked into a fancy room at Tomuraushi Onsen. The situation called for a bed.
And it was a nice beer: I remember that. But I don't remember if I finished it before the sleep hit me. I know this though: I slept the sleep of the dead that night.
My advice to you is this. If you like mountains, you won't find many more beautiful than Tomuraushi. But if you're going to climb it in a day, leave before dawn. Have a good breakfast. And don't forget your torch.
