My friend Naomi came in from Hawaii last week Thursday for a two week visit. On Sunday morning we woke up at 4:15 to get an early start on the long journey to Nagano Prefecture. From my town, we had to catch a train to Shin-Osaka, get our tickets and hop on the bullet train to Nagoya, about 45 minutes away, then switch to a regular express train for a two and a half hour ride to Takayama, a town known for a quaint area with historic houses and shops. From there, we had to take two buses before finally arriving Kamikochi, the jumping off point for the circuit we'd decided to try. All told, it took us until almost 1 PM before we were ready to hit the trail.
We snapped a picture and headed out along a path that also doubled as a small road for supply and maintenance vehicles. We set a leisurely pace, enjoying the much cooler temperature and lower humidity of the mountains, the clean, clean air, and of course the nearly constant vistas of the range of mountains rising above us. We were, for this part of the journey, walking up a valley.
We strolled along the trail/access road, but stopped after about three hours, already tired after the early start, worn out by sitting on trains and buses.
Our plan, at this point, was to do what would normally have been a three day circuit, if one was able to start the first leg at an early hour, in four days. We would travel light and stay in huts spread out fairly regularly along the multitude of trails that wend their way along the valleys and ridges of this amazing national park. Huts provide a place to sleep with the option of meals, but for a pretty hefty price at roughly $90 a night with the meals. Still, we didn't have to carry a tent, nor sleeping bags, nor food for four days. Our route would take us up to Yari-ga-take, a peak of 3180 meters (10,433 feet; fifth highest peak in Japan), on the second night, then from there we would continue on to Hotaka-dake (third highest at 3190 m) for the third night, from where we would descend back to Kamikochi on the fourth and final day.
Well, the second day dawned early, the sun rising around 4:30, but breakfast was served at 6 and so we didn't get out of bed until around 5:30. We ate a traditional Japanese breakfast (rice, miso soup, fish, egg, veggies) and were on the trail again by 7.
We had broken up the first leg of the journey, a 17 kilometer (10.5 miles) leg, that supposedly takes 7-8 hours.
Well, we'd done three hours already and figured we could lick the rest of it in a leisurely 5 to 6 hours. How wrong we were.
The main problem as that we were hiking probably a month before most people go through there, so the guidebook gave a low estimate for time. Either that or they were talking about very fit hikers. See, there was still a lot of snow deeper in the mountains. Although the wide and easy trail/access road ended there at the hut where we spent our first night, a rather easy path continued for another two hours or so. But from the next hut, the trail gets steeper until it comes upon the ruins of a hut that was wiped out by an avalanche some time ago. From there, the trail goes very, very steep. In what I would guess is the last three miles of the hike, you gain nearly a mile of altitude. And there were large patches of snow to ascend as well.
All this took its toll on us. We slowed to a near crawl. Around this time we met a Swiss man, also half Japanese as it turned out, named Kenji, and we finished the ascent together. (Probably lucky for us, as we had neglected to bring a good map and may have taken the wrong path...maybe...more on our unpreparedness later.) The total time for our second day was 8 hours. So, to finish the 7-8 hour leg took us 11 hours. Crazy, but true. I may have been able to do it faster, maybe even in the 7-8 hours claimed in the book, if I'd been alone, but it would have been harder, much harder, and I felt near exhausted as it was.
After much slipping and sliding, we arrived at the hut on the top of the mountain, just down from the actual peak. Naomi was exhausted, done in, so I climbed the peak with Kenji and, as the clouds broke and closed, I managed to get some spectacular shots of the valley on the far side. Without a doubt, one of the best hikes I've ever done, one of the top experiences I've had in Japan, or even in my life. It was a difficult ascent, but worth it.
Now let me digress for a moment. How unprepared we were... I did both days of this ascent wearing only shorts and a t-shirt. In spite of a dreary forecast, the sun was out for much of our climb and I wasn't cold for longer than a few minutes at a stretch. But I forgot how easily I burn when I have no tan to protect me, and I've been indoors of late, rock climbing in a gym. And with all that snow, with hours spent on or near the snow, I was getting blasted by sun. So I got burned on my lower legs, my forearms, and the back of my neck (I did remember to put sunscreen on my face). Stupid #1. The next thing I did was to forget to bring more food along. The farther along you, the farther you get from the base, the more expensive things get. By the time we reached the peak, a bottle of water (500mL) was about $3.50. Snacks were equally high. Stupid #2. Then there were the old running shoes I was wearing, instead of real hiking boots...preferably waterproof, given the snow we were hiking on for much of the ascent. Stupid #3. The last thing was to wear shorts instead of my zip-off leg hiking pants...and to not bring rain gear for my legs...you'll see why in the next paragraph. Stupid #4.
The night we spent atop the mountain was not quiet. A storm came in, complete with thunder and lightning, and the rain was still falling as we woke the next morning, at our breakfast, gathered our things, and finally started out. With the weather being what it was, and given how tired we both were at this point, we opted to turn back the way we'd come, descend all the way back to Kamikochi in one day, get the buses back to Takayama and spend a day there relaxing. We figured the down would be faster than the up, so it would take us maybe 8 hours. Wrong again.
Kenji was heading out at the same time, so we started our descent together. But with stiff legs and a cold rain, the going was slow and Kenji soon decided that he could sort of "ski" down the snow much faster than we were walking down the rocky path. Soon he was hundreds of meters ahead. We gave it a try ourselves, but after a few falls and a rather uncomfortable attempt to just slide down on our butts, we opted to just walk down the snow...which is very slow going. We walked on rocky patches where we could, but up toward the peak, there was more snow than rock, and it took a long time. And as we went on, we got more tired and moved slower. The cold didn't help at all. At one point I was freezing, though not worried about my health, as it wasn't that cold, just miserably uncomfortable. If I'd had hiking boots and rain pants, I would have been fairly comfortable. As it was, I fantasizing about a hot bath.
(Note: no pictures could capture the rain and cold, so I've not included any from our descent, of which there were unsurprisingly few, given the rain.)
When we finally made it down to the hut ruins and thus the end of the most difficult part of our descent, over four hours had passed instead of the two I'd hoped. We completed the rest of the trip in another six hours. The rain stopped and the sun even came out a bit, but we were just tired, tired, tired. We got the last bus out that would make the connection we needed to get back to Takayama.
We stayed the night in a Best Western there, which was distinctly (obviously) not Japanese but very comfortable and, as an unexpected bonus, had an awesome breakfast buffet included. We walked around the town a bit, checking out the morning markets and the old, historic homes and shops, before I caught a train back to Osaka just before noon.
As tired as I felt, or maybe partially because of that, I had one of the best experiences of my life. That was a phenomenal hike, spectacular beauty, wrapped up in a true challenge. Those views would still have been beautiful, but not nearly so much had I not had to work so hard to see them. Absolutely wonderful.
I hope I can go there again next year, do the full course or maybe even a longer one...maybe even get really crazy and camp it, with a tent and food and all that...
