Part II:
By the time we started the steeper section of the trail to head up the mountain, it started raining with a bit more force, but still at a moderate rate, definitely not the full strength I had expected with the typhoon warnings. Not enough, anyway, to make me don my insanely non-porous rain pants. It was a really beautiful trail, following the river almost all the way to our final destination, and I was in awe of the amazing glacial appearance of the river the whole time. There was a lot of stepping up through tree roots and over rocks. The trail was pretty steep, as expected, without much reprieve from the incline, but the path was never boring. There were a number of spots where we had to tread carefully across the streams of water cascading down from the heights above us, and we encountered one crossing of a narrow suspension bridge over the lively, rushing river. One of my favorite sections was when the trail emptied out onto a swath of rocks that had obviously tumbled down the slope at some point in the past and were now part of the hiker’s challenge. Whether the rocks were resting stably or unstably was up for debate, which added to the adventure of scampering across them with nothing but the fall-away slope between our precarious trail and the river below. It was at this section of the river where we finally uncovered the section of the river where the snow was melting into a torrent of water. I’d had a great expectation of finding this point given my obsession with the river. I’m not sure what words to use to describe the “discovering,” but it was a bit like uncovering a majestic, yet subtle, blissful secret. The snow-pack formed soft-looking lids from under which the river suddenly came alive.
We had seen small, distant bits of white clinging to the sides of the mountains throughout the hike, and we were now finally amongst them. At one point, one of the members of our group spied the hut which was our final destination for the day. Oh happy moment! Our gaze dropped a little to a large snow field resting on the slope just below the hut, and another of our group drew our attention to a couple of red, black and blue specks that seemed to be moving across the snow field. They first hikers we’d seen outside our own group all day. I remember my first thought at that point being, “Ugh. I wouldn’t want to be climbing across snow right now. I’m glad we don’t have snow on our trail.” Of course as soon as I had the thought, I realized our trail was headed towards that same snow field and we would have to climb it as well to get to the hut. I’d been hoping maybe our trail winded back behind the snow-field to some miraculous un-snow-covered trail. VERY wishful thinking. Another 20-minutes after this realization and we hit the edge of the snow field.
Now, of course with snow and increased elevation comes colder temperatures. And it was still raining. I hadn’t donned my jacket at all during the hiking, and I loath my rain pants, hence will suffer through almost anything before I put them on. So, at this point I was soaked, which hadn’t been that much of an issue because it had been pretty warm most of the hike and I prefer to be soaked with rain and sweat instead of just soaked with sweat (per the aforementioned loathsome rain pants). Had I known we were going to hit snow, I would have thought differently, but it never occurred to me that in heat of July in Japan that we’d have to deal with so much snow, even higher up in the mountains. After all, the times I’d had snowball fights in Rockies in the States during the summer months, it was no problem to be wearing shorts. As we started up the snowfield, I was starting to feel a bit chilly and it was still raining (harder now, of course), so I put on my jacket. It didn’t look like we had that far to go (and we wouldn’t have had that far to go if we hadn’t gone the long way around to the hut), but once again I was wrong. So my thoughts turned to how funny (ironic, not ha ha) it would be if I caught hypothermia in the middle of July. It wasn’t really THAT cold, not like Everest cold (for a dramatic example), but being wet and cold and tired….we’d been hiking for 7 hours by this point with 20-30 lb packs….of course you’re bound to get melodramatic with yourself.
Our initial plan had been to camp in a tent that Bill had carried up the mountain on behalf of us all. None of us had expected the amount of snow that was still present (it had to have been a couple feet deep still in some areas), and with the rain turning heavier as the day wore on accompanied with the fact that everything we were wearing and carrying was now “sloshy,” we had no issues with parting with the $60 it would cost for us to stay the night in the hut. The hut was more of a small complex of simple, wooden buildings than the 1-room, no amenities shack we usually imagine when we hear the word “hut.” We forked over our cash as quickly as we could in the reception house (which also had a small gift-shop, a small waiting-type area with a TV and a small eating area), headed back out into the rain to climb a few stairs to the sleeping quarters, then back out into the rain to put some of our stuff in the dry room, then back out into the rain to go back to the sleeping quarters area. Can you tell I didn’t want to be in the rain anymore at this point?!
I like Japanese mountain huts. There weren’t any individual rooms at this hut. The sleeping quarters area had one separate room with about 6 low tables (for sitting on the floor) where people could eat the food they brought with them, then a section that looked like something out of “Little House on the Prairie.” You know, the type of house that has a couple rooms/cubbyholes on the bottom floor without doors, and in one or two places you have access to stairs that lead you up to the second level where there are a couple of rooms/cubbyholes (spaces divided by bits of wall). Our group of 4 had a “room” consisting of floor space enough for 2 people on either side of a narrow, wooden stairwell. Each space had a storage of futon mattresses, pillows and blankets. The sleeping quarters were very open, so we were constantly walking in and around the other guests and vice versa, which of course isn’t a problem when you’re in good company, and people who like to do crazy stuff like hike up mountains in typhoons are generally going to get along quite well, even with a language barrier. Actually, one of the ladies at the reception area, who happens to be from one of the towns just 15 minutes from my town (she must live up at the hut for something like a month/seasonal-shift), told us that they originally had reservations for over 100 people that weekend, but because of the typhoon, the majority of people had cancelled (which is, naturally, most likely the only reason there was room available for us to stay in the hut seeing as how we hadn’t made an advanced reservation), and there were only 30-40 people staying at the hut the night we ended up there.
There was a group of maybe 6-8 middle-aged Japanese men staying in the “rooms” below us, and they made a feast of a meal with noodles, vegetables and sliced meat (cooked, just in case you were wondering) that they invited us to join them for….after the 4 of us had finished up our pathetic little snack-time huddled around the massive space-heater stationed just inside the door of our sleeping quarters section. They were from a hiking group that was pretty hard-core. They did these types of trips relatively often, were in bed by 7 or 8pm and up by 4am to do whatever it was they were going to do that day, whether it be hike, explore the area or just lounge around. A few of the men could speak a little English, and one of the men had pretty decent English, but then again, with 2 Japanese in the midst of our group of 4, one of whom has excellent English skills, we had some nice conversations, and they were able to offer us a lot of advice about what we should do about our second day of hiking.
Hiking Day 2 was an issue. The night before and the morning of, we kept an eye on the weather report, which said the rain would stop around mid-day, so we were somewhat hopeful that if we lingered a bit, we’d be able to finish the hike we intended, which consisted of climbing to the peak above our hut, then hiking back down a different trail along a ridge or two between peaks. But when we woke up on the morning of day 3, it was still raining with authority and the winds had kicked in. My initial thought when I woke up was that the typhoon had finally reached full force up here in the mountains and we might even get stuck at the hut; that’s how strong the winds sounded from inside the hut. While we ate breakfast, we deliberated (for about an hour or two) about what to do. The path to the peak was covered in snow and not hikeable without crampons, which none of us had. Even if we made it up to the peak, there was still the hike across the ridge, which was probably not a good idea if the winds refused to die down. Our hut rented crampons, but if we rented from them, we’d have to return them to the same place, which would mean climbing to the top of the mountain where we couldn’t see anything because it was so cloudy, then coming back down to the hut. That option didn’t make a lot of sense to any of us. The other two options were to stay put for the day, stay at the hut again for another night and see what the next day was like, or just give the typhoon the victory and hike back down the mountain along the same path we came up and stay down at the bottom of the mountain so we could have a relaxing evening and morning before catching our bus back to Tokyo.
Of course it was a bit of a painful decision in the end for Bill because this was his one shot at climbing to the top of the mountain and completing his originally intended hike (whereas the rest of us would have a chance for future revenge on the mountain). And knowing how fickle the weather could be, it was easy to imagine that it would probably start to clear as soon as we headed back down or be beautiful the next day. Unfortunately none of us were psychic weather forecasters, so, because of the weather conditions, snow, the fact that the majority of us had never had experience with crampons, and not wanting to risk missing our bus on day 4, we opted to retrace our steps and head down the mountain that same day.
The rain and wind had essentially stopped by the time we headed out around 10am, but heading down the snow field that had been pounded by rain the entire day and night before was a bit precarious. The steps that had been cut into the snow previously were more like a slide than stairs now. The other three of our group were booking it down the slip’n’slide. How, I don’t know. I’m suspicious that they all have a bit of billy goat in their blood. I was going as carefully as possible because for whatever reason, I have dubious balance going downhill. I still fell 4 times. Anyway, we all (by that I mean me) made it down the snow field without incident and made our way back to “base camp” along the same trail we had hiked up. We passed a bunch of groups of hikers – some only 2 members strong, others 20 strong – on the way down. We realized the typhoon was a blessing in disguise for us, because if the weather had been any more cooperative, the trails, and huts, would have been packed.
We made it back to the campsite at the bottom of the mountain just in time to completely rush through a still delicious and appreciated cooked meal at the little campsite restaurant, set up the tent before darkness completely closed in, and get our foot in the door of the bathhouse before it closed. We had an awesome little campsite with the backdoor of the tent opening up almost directly into a little stream (with, again, amazingly clear water). There were next to no other campers, which was very nice. A bit of fog settled in later in the evening, which made for extraordinarily humorous trips to the bathroom. Even though the bathroom was only about 200 yards away from our campsite, there were no lights whatsoever around the campground and really no path back to our tent, so it was very easy to lose your sense of direction. I can’t even begin to describe how comical it was to be sitting at the picnic table next to our tent, seeing light from the headlights/flashlights of the other 3 group members bouncing around in the dark as they were trying to find their way back to the tent, accompanied by hysterical laughter and calls, in both English and Japanese, of, “Where are we?!” “Where’s the tent?!” “Where’s Mandy?!” “It’s Mandy magic!”
Of course on final we awoke to the sun shining through puffs of friendly-looking, fluffy, white cumulus clouds. For the first time we were able to view the peak we had wanted to climb but were thwarted from doing so by the same weather that was now teasing us with beautiful views of the route we would have hiked down had there been no typhoon and no snow. Ironically enough, the staff at the hut we stayed at the first night had also told us that there was still so much snow at the higher elevations so late in the season because there hadn’t been as much rain during the spring and early summer this year as there had been in previous years. And we had to attempt the hike precisely when those rains were finally making their appearance. Figures.
We made ourselves a very odd breakfast of spaghetti noodles and stewed tomatoes and potatoes, enjoyed the sun, the views, the river, and the bits of cotton-looking things that had suddenly filled up the air floating around like little fairies. I was walking back from the bathroom during our pack-up, and was bearing down on the picnic table where Piro and Bill were mucking about when I noticed that the tall weeds next to the river were swaying quite forcefully, and the river seemed to be swaying, and hey, I think the ground is moving too, now that I think about it (took me a little while to get to that one because I was in motion already myself). Whoop, yep, earthquake! It was a relatively lengthy earthquake too. Once Piro yelled, “Did you feel that?!?!” my earthquake suspicions were confirmed (ha ha). It was a really interesting experience to be outside next to a stream during an earthquake. I really got the sense that the entire earth just suddenly had a bit of a bobble. In my visual recollections, the mountains seem to be bouncing a bit too. It wasn’t until we were back at the bus station area that contained a large-screen TV that we realized for the first time the magnitude of the earthquake. The epicenter had been in the prefecture just north of us (like saying it was in the next state over), and, as you might have heard, caused quite a bit of damage in that prefecture.
Even though Mother Nature was flexing her muscle during the excursion, I had a lot of fun – probably even moreso in retrospect!
