Fishing for mountains
May 6, 2008 | Filed Under Hyakumeizan, Hiking, Japan, Climbing, Inspiration
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I saw my soul at nine minutes past six in the morning, as I climbed the ridge between the summits of Nokogiri and Kaikomagatake. It floated like a phantom in the clouds billowing up the north face. It was clearly mine; I waved at it and it waved back. Its elongated arms and legs matched my movements. Like a shadow but surrounded by two, and at times three, perfectly circular rainbows.
It walked with me as I made my slow way through the snow and up the ridge. At close to 10,000 feet the air was getting thin but this was no hallucination. I could see that it too seemed to be carrying a large pack, and I was happy to think that it must love the same things that I do. We walked together for maybe fifteen minutes before I climbed into the clouds that obscured Kaikomagatake’s peak, and that vision of my soul disappeared with the sun.
Sadly what I saw wasn’t really my soul but a phenomenon known as the Specter of Brocken, a rare interplay of the sun and clouds that occurs at mainly at altitude. It is named for the highest peak in the Harz mountains in Germany, where the Specter is said to be a monster of immense proportions which wears a headdress of oak leaves and carries an uprooted pine. It appears suddenly and seems to possess enormous, treetrunk-like limbs. The motion of the climber and the movement of the clouds upon which it is projected seem to give it life, a presence which is at once malign and malicious. It never fails to surprise, causing more than a few climbers to fall to their deaths with shock. I’d seen it once before on Kashima-yari last year, but this time felt different, more proximate, as if I truly was in the company of something sentient. I’m lucky to have seen it at all; Jim Wickwire, one of the first men to climb K2, said he saw it just once in forty years of climbing.
The Specter itself is obviously the result of the climber’s shadow being projected onto nearby clouds. The giant size is a misperception, the same one which makes the moon look larger when it is near the horizon. I’m not sure what causes the rainbows. Maybe some kind of back scattering of the sunlight. I suspect Captain Interesting knows, or has a book that holds the answer.
I was back for another attempt on Kaikomagatake in the Minami Alps. Like last time I started out from the foot of the Todaigawa valley, following the trail along five or six miles and up a few thousand feet through the boulders and debris. The winter snows were melting, turning the Todai river into a boiling, grinding flood of grey water. Rough log bridges that had spanned the current two weeks ago now ended half way across; with pack unclipped and slung over one shoulder, I jumped the gaps. Unlike last time I had a different line planned for my ascent of Kaikoma, one which would take me away from the trade route from Kitazawa, which was deserted two weeks ago but would now be crowded with Golden Week climbers. The map showed a route which branched off the valley and up Nokogiridake (the “Saw Peak”) and along to Kaikoma. Fukuda Kyuya’s description of Kaikoma is filled with superlatives, “the most beautiful of the Alps”, “the hardest climb” and I felt this would be a fitting route since technology has rendered the mountain otherwise overly accessible. I also needed solitude, desolation and a challenge; this promised all three.
Per the map, the climb up Nokogiri should be five hours. However the winter snow still lay thick and rotten on its upper slopes, turning it into a “tottering pile of shit”, to borrow a phrase from Jon Tinker. In turns it went from sawa-nobori (gorge climbing) to bouldering to hacking through steep, dense rhodedendron forest to chest deep snow, knife edge ridges and the constant staccato accompaniment of rockfall. Seven hours later I topped out at 8800 feet and from the summit beheld the long crest to Kaikoma. The north-east side of it was still heavily corniced with snow, while the south-west side was a mess of tumbledown rockfall where the snows had melted and granite boulders career down the mountainside.
The original plan was to make the summit of Kaikoma by nightfall, roll out the bivy and catch both sunset and sunrise. Creeping slowly along the ridge, however, it became evident that I would scarcely make the hut some two hours below Kaikoma before darkness. Progress was slow. Each fixed rope and chain had to be tugged and checked carefully before clipping in. The mountain erodes too fast for anything to stay permanently attached up here. Six hours of butt-clenching fear later I stumbled on the unmanned hut at Roku-gome, tugged at the door and found that snow had drifted inside and frozen it shut. I dug a pit by the door, unpacked the bivy and crawled inside, imagining myself to be cozy in the hut instead.
I woke before the alarm at 3 a.m. to a mighty crash from the valley. Landslides and rockfall are common at this time of year, as the snows melt and the mountains loosen their grip on their fabric. Then another crash and, as I watched the shooting stars from the small gap in the bivy, I imagined the noise to be the hooves of giant horses galloping down below. Kaikomagatake translates to “Horse Peak of the Kai Region”, and in ancient times it was believed that the horses of the gods were stabled here. Some people say it is because the snow forms the shape of a horse as it melts off the peak, but I wondered whether in fact it was the sound of rockfall that gave birth to the myth. Either way, it was time to get moving. An almost lenticular cloud hung over Senjogatake, bringing a warning of worse weather to come and the barometer was already starting to fall.
A few hours later I came over the north-west ridge of Kaikoma to the summit at 9800 feet, joining a few small groups of climbers who had made their way either up the north-east spur from Kurodo or from Kitazawa to the south-east. After some jokey applause and playful taps on my helmet, their general consensus was that only madmen come via Nokogiri. I found it hard to disagree. From the top you can see back down to the grey scar that is the Todaigawa valley. It felt strange to think that in a few hours I would be down there again, but food and fuel had run low on the longer-than-expected Nokogiri route, so down I would have to go. I turned my back on the summit and started the descent, passing hardy bands of climbers making their way up from their multi-colored tents pitched below at Kitazawa.
On the first day I’d met only one other person, Nagase-san the fisherman, who drove up just as I was preparing to depart. He greeted me good morning, then with a great sigh “Aaah, it’s been thirty years since I last came to the Todaigawa valley. Are you climbing Kaikoma?” I said I was, and he told me how he had come here as a high school student when he belonged to the mountaineering club, and they climbed Kaikoma in the days before the Minami-Alps through-road to Kitazawa was built. He was born and raised in Hyogo prefecture west of Kyoto and spent twenty five years as a hardware engineer in Tokyo before returning to Hyogo five years ago to work for a regional sake brewer. I asked if he still climbed. “No, not since high school. I fish. Every day, before and after work! And I remembered the river here, so I drove through the night to see if there might be something good here. Do you know anywhere good to fish?” There was a spot about an hour and a half away that I had passed before, and I offered to lead him there as it was on my way. We walked and talked about mountains and fishing until we reached the pools where mountain trout flitted back and forth. We said goodbye and I carried on up to Nokogiri and beyond.
Returning to the car late the next day, I found a plastic bag tied to the wing mirror, inside of which was a note and a parcel. The note read:
Chris-san,
(I hope you can read Japanese)
Thank you for leading me up to the fishing spot in Todaigawa. I enjoyed our time together, and listening to you talk about the mountains I was reminded of how much I used to love climbing them too. Tomorrow I am going to Tokyo, and while I am there I will buy some hiking boots. I am going to climb the mountains in Hyogo, and when I use my boots I will remember you.
I hope you like fish and sake.
Nagase
Inside the parcel were two mountain trout, carefully gutted, packed in snow and wrapped in newspaper, and a 250cc bottle of sake from his brewery. The fish were promptly grilled over a small fire and the the sake warmed up in the Jetboil. As I sat in the dark valley watching the flames I thought that in some way these mountains had shown me something of my soul after all.
New. Maybe also improved..
April 19, 2008 | Filed Under Uncategorized
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Mountains are big. I could feel them strain against their cramped borders in the 500×300 images I’d forced them into. They demanded space to breath, and accused me of covering up my deficiencies. A small image hides a multitude of sins. It was time to come clean.
One rainy night in Tokyo later, and here’s the new version. I hope it looks OK. The vagaries of the browser world and propensity for wordpress to render layout differently depending on the installed version makes consistency difficult. I went for fixed sizes, so sorry if you have an enormous screen with a lot of white-space now, or a tiny screen you have to scroll across to see the photos. 56k dialup guys too, I apologise unreservedly - the photos are heavy. But Google Analytics tells me that there’s only two of you out there. And really, it’s 2008. Join us on broadband. You’ll like it better there.
Google also tells me there’s a surprisingly large number of people coming here from UBS and Lehman (hi guys) - thanks as always for taking care of us.
The posts back to last November have been converted to the new large format, I’ll get around to the ones prior to that shortly. So stop back again in a week or so if you want to see them in their enlarged glory.
Finally, there’s a Japanese version of the blog going up soon too. I stopped posting to mixi.jp a while ago when they unilaterally changed their policy to one which would allow them unfettered use of any and all content. I know the technical background, but it still made me uneasy. There’ll be a link at the top of the page, and I am slowly working back through the translations for the English entries so far.
EDIT:
I’ve noticed some of the photos have lost a little resolution as they get scaled from 1024×685 on flickr down to 800x(something) on the site. Anything with diagonal lines looks ugly. I’ll probably make some 800 width versions specially to use instead. Sure beats packing the apartment for the move next week..
Snowmen on Kaikoma
April 14, 2008 | Filed Under Hyakumeizan, Hiking, Japan, Climbing
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There it was, perched precariously on the side of the mountain right in front of me; a perfectly formed snowman. Or rather, the body of one. No head to be seen, just its round body, a meter and a half across and forlorn in the snow. I looked around and spied another a little further up, sitting stately as a rotund East Island head and staring out across the snowy valley. Headless snowmen at 8000 feet made no sense.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I crouched without thinking, just in time to witness another giant snowman hurl itself down from on high and explode into a tree below, which shook the snow from its boughs in anger. Then I understood. Clumps of snow and ice were dropping off the rocks in the warm spring sun and rolling, gathering snow, before launching themselves off the cliffs above me. Some settled on the slope below like snowy Moai, while others barreled and exploded on whatever was in their way. I was in their way. It was time to go home.
Getting into Japan’s mountains in the winter is to be a trespasser, a burglar of their cold secrets. The roads are closed off, some more securely than others. I spent half of Friday night looking for an entrance to Mount Kaikomagatake, moving blockades and dodging the rockfall on unkempt, potholed tracks. Rentacar companies don’t like me much anymore. I saw tears in the eyes of one of their girls last time I returned the car, caked as it was in mud and with half a bush stuck in the bumper. And missing a hubcap. I’ve learnt always to take full insurance.
Eventually I hit upon an unblocked track, but as suspected it terminated at Todai, a good seven miles from the foot of Kaikoma. I grab a couple of hours of sleep before rising and starting the long walk up the Todai-gawa valley. At its head the Kaikoma ridge shimmers in the early morning sun, its face still streaked with snow, and looking impossibly far off. I feel very small. The route along the river looks easy on the map, but the distance conceals the 3000 foot rise in elevation along its course. And this just to reach the foot of the mountain, itself another 3000 foot climb.
By midday I was sitting in the sun at the Kitazawa hut, melting snow to drink and studying the ursine footprints in the snow. Didn’t think they’d have woken up so early this year, but clearly they are on the prowl already. I punch on through the snow, post-holing in the springtime slush, until I am standing in the middle of the decapitated snowmens’ garden.
Go down or go up. I choose down. It’s late in the day, and getting hit by one of these cannonballs would not be a good thing on this slope. There’s no-one around for miles and it’s a long drag back to the car. Not the kind of place to have an accident. As I walk back down the valley, Kaikoma’s snowy head watches me until the clouds roll in and close it from view. I’ve figured out some of it’s secrets and it knows I’ll be back soon.
Snow country
February 19, 2008 | Filed Under Hiking, Japan
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“I think the roof is collapsing.”
Kevin’s headlamp shone out from the small opening in his sleeping bag, illuminating the snow cave we’d dug a few hours before, lighting up the ceiling. A ceiling which by this time had dropped to less than six inches away from my face. Pulling on his jacket he slithers out of the shrinking entrance, and I follow. It’s 3a.m. and our lamps sear through the snowstorm outside, freezing the flakes momentarily in their crazed descent. Kevin and Tomoe pull their gear from the cave, pitch the tent and crawl in. I drag my bivy bag outside and smother myself in its warm down, letting the snow cover me and the patter of heavy flakes lull me back to sleep. How deep would it be by morning?
We woke and pushed through waist-deep snow for a few hours the next day before taking stock and deciding to turn around. The storm of the previous night had given way to a cobalt blue sky, but our tracks had been obliterated by another couple of feet of fresh, heavy snow.
“Fifty paces then switch?” Kevin suggested. We took it in turns to lead and break a path through the fresh, before swapping and resting. I managed no more than thirty paces before my thighs gave out in a blaze of lactic fatigue. The snow clung thick to my snowshoes which refused to float on the snowpack. Kevin ploughed ahead on his kanjiki, the traditional snowshoe equivalent of Japan, and pounded the snow into submission.
By nightfall we’d reached the house, and an hour later we were at the local baths, swapping cold waist deep snow for blistering neck deep water. Sakae-mura is a small village, and news of our plans had traveled far and wide.
“So you didn’t climb Naeba?”. No, we’d abandoned that plan.
“Heh, why climb in this weather anyway?”.
That’s the kind of question that can only be answered with a grin and a shrug.
Kevin’s (much better) account of the hike can be found here.
He and Tomoe run One Life Japan, an organization dedicated to tours and programs that provide unique participation in the rural traditions of Japan. What they are doing is both fascinating and important - I’d urge you to take a look.
More Twight
February 9, 2008 | Filed Under Exercise, Climbing, Heroes
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“I spent twelve weeks on crutches after knee surgery. During recovery I surrounded myself with wanna-bes, pretend-to-bes, has-beens and never-will-bes. I met people who wasted their talent or were afraid of it. They taught me why I hadn’t become a good climber. Like them, I was afraid to succeed, scared to commit. I didn’t want to be any better than anyone else. Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who don’t think enough of themselves to make something of themselves, people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.”
Ice world
January 28, 2008 | Filed Under Climbing
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The key element to extreme sports is that once you’ve really pushed yourself to the limit, maybe even risked everything, it provides a new way of seeing the world.
Like a snowboarder who’s sailing 30’ off a mountain, I’ve seen these guys, you can’t breathe while they’re moving it’s so hairy.
Or the guys who ride big waves. These waves are half the size of a fuckin’ hotel.
If you screw up there, you’re dead.
After those experiences, how are you going to disturb a guy like that?
He wakes up in the morning knowing he’s going to risk grave bodily harm and when he pulls it off and remains serene throughout, it’s because he’s dispensed with so much of the “God my shoes hurt” “my girlfriend’s a bitch” “my phone bill’s too much”.
He’s blown all the clutter away and connected with something way more absolute and powerful.
Then all of a sudden you have a whole new perspective”.
Henry Rollins, author/icon
Rollins words echoed in my head as my axe busted out of the ice for the umpteenth time and the ledge I had precariously kicked into began to crumble away. Nothing else mattered at that moment. I felt I was carved out of the same cold blue ice as the wall I was on.
We’d spent Saturday fooling around on the ice wall at bottom of Aka-dake. Blue sky and blue ice, we raced for the top of the wall to reach the sunlight which warmed its top. In the minus 17 degree air every ray of sun burned like a furnace where it hit my upturned face.
Sunday was a waterfall climb known locally as the God of the Mountains, a 200 foot plume of icicles and blue-white ice in winter. Once you start you either finish or fall. We kicked and chopped, shouting when our arms became too pumped to make the next swing and whooping when the axes bit deeply and carried us to the top.
A lone deer followed the river below the frozen fall, turning its intense gaze to the men waging war on the blue ice. As our eyes met, Rollin’s words came to me again.
He’s blown all the clutter away and connected with something way more absolute and powerful.
Pemmican
January 20, 2008 | Filed Under Hiking, Nutrition, Climbing
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Water. Nutrition. Shelter. The three basics of staying alive in the roaring outdoors. You either take them with you, or find them on the way.
I’ve been looking for alternatives to my usual food pack of Snickers bars and curry rice. Snickers are fine but they don’t hold up well in warmer weather. And curry rice tends to be cloying at the end of a dehydrated day, not to mention the mess. Making pemmican has been high on my list of things to try for some time, but this year I’m going to do it.
Pemmican has been described as the ultimate food. Originally a Native American invention (it means literally “travel food for long trips”), it is a high energy but balanced mix of fat, meat and fruits. Per gram, its nutritional value is hard to beat. It can last for years without going bad. Antarctic expeditions lived exclusively on it for six months at a time.
I’ve been racking my mind over where to get the fat though. Hardly a readily available item in the middle of Tokyo, I thought. It was hard enough at the Kinokuniya supermarket explaining that I needed yeast to make bread that one time. I might as well have asked where the armoured weaponry section was.
Then I remembered. Before cooking sukiyaki, the pan is primed with a big lump of fat. Pure, white beef suet. Definitely a supermarket item.
Tomorrow I will trawl the supermarkets of Aoyama in search of ingredients. I may have to skip the powdered beef liver though. But pemmican of some form will be mine.
Does it really have the lasting properties ascribed to it? Can it feed an army for weeks? Is it the food of the gods?
Or will the immortal words of antipodean bard Mike “Crocodile” Dundee ring true:
Well, you can live on it, but it tastes like shit.
My koan
January 15, 2008 | Filed Under Hyakumeizan, Hiking, Japan, Climbing
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“Who is it that carries for you this lifeless corpse of yours?”. Hsueh-Yen’s koan comes to me often in the mountains. I look up at a distant peak and know that by nightfall I will be at its top, but I do not know where the will comes from or how it must happen. Something stirs and pushes me on.
I lay in the tent listening to the light patter of snow on its canvas in the pre-dawn. Much against my will something drags me from the soft, warm down of my sleeping bag and plunges my feet into icy boots. Then it throws me towards Mount Hyakkyo-ga-take, whose head remains swathed in cloud and snow.
I’d walked through the primeval forests of Mount Odaigahara the day before. Mist clung to the trees, smothering all sound except that of the river below. My bear-bell rang forlornly in the gloom, but I was glad of its presence (and my capsicum spray) after finding bear scat on trail.
Beautiful as it was, I was not sorry to turn my back on Odaigahara. The freezing mist had chilled my bones and the gloom my heart. I went in search of the nearest hot spring to put the warmth back in them both before making my way to the foot of Hyakkyo for Sunday’s climb.
The storms of early winter had washed away much of whatever path there had been up the northern spur of the mountain. No cultivated cedars for Hyakko, this is primeval forest and I crash through the thick undergrowth and over fallen trees, trying to keep a compass bearing. Then I come upon a mighty gash in the mountain, a landslide deep and wide which bisects the path for fifty meters both above and below me, and I know that today\’s climb has come to an end. The exposed yellow clay is fresh and garish, and stands in contrast to the deep greens and browns of the forest around it. A small rock bounced lazily down its length before stopping with a clatter in the mess of tree trunks and boulders at its foot.
I head for the hot spring resort of Dorokawa, which lies at the foot of the holy mountain Omine. I soak away my aches and disappointment in the hot water for hours until night falls. I need real food and walk Dorokawa’s deserted streets until find it at a lonely okonomiyaki restaurant. The owner is closing up for the night, but takes pity on me and waves me towards the tatami mats and a small room festooned with banners of the seven lucky gods. His wife takes my order, brings me some hot sake and asks where I am staying. She shivers when I say my tent.
The sake cuts like a knife and spreads through me. The owner shuffles over and, trouser fly down, cooks the okinomiyaki for me on the hot plate in the table. We talk about Omine. He thinks there will be a meter of snow on top, but I am not so sure. He leaves me to eat, and watches the Sunday night history drama on television about the Satsuma rebellion. For a moment I am jealous of him and his wife tonight. Their beds will be warm, and their life uncomplex. Whatever carries their corpses is different from mine. Warm and fed, I stand and make my way out. The owner’s wife wonders aloud if she should lend me a blanket, and I smile and tell her I have a good sleeping bag. The car rolls through the dark night, along the rock-stewn road to the trailhead, into the snow and away from the land of men.
Mount Omine has been a training ground for ascetic buddhist monks since the seventh century when En-no-Gyoja roamed its peaks. Even today women may not stand on its slopes, a fact proclaimed by large signs at the entrance.
The climb to the top follows the Omine-okugakemichi, the 1300 year old pilgrimage route which winds over one hundred miles along the hills of the Kii-peninsula. Snow falls heavily for the first few hours. I count my steps, one to ten, over and over again to keep going. At the gate to the temple on the top of the mountain I bow, and as I do so the sun breaks through the clouds and within minutes the mountains lay their snowy splendor before me. Jumping and shouting with delight I bound down the mountain, crampons cutting smooth and deep into the bright snow.
I still don’t know who it is that carries this lifeless corpse of mine. But I do know that the mountains call to it, and it to them. And for that I am glad.
Plans, plans…
January 8, 2008 | Filed Under Hiking, Japan
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Dark clouds cruised the high places, dropping the first snows of winter, clearing briefly to reveal snow capped peaks and keeping us to the foothills of Kyoto and Nara over the year end.
We traced the millenia-old footsteps of En-no-Gyoja, Kukai and Saigyo through Yoshino near Nara. The armour of Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune still sits at Yoshimi shrine alongside the weapons of his retainer, the warrior-monk Benkei. It’s been there for almost a thousand years.
The long weekend is approaching. So here’s the plan. Jump on the shinkansen on Friday evening. Hire a 4WD at Osaka, and drive up to Odaigahara. Spent Saturday hiking through the snow in Odaigahara’s primeval forests, then head west to Mount Omine. Climb up on Sunday, back down on Monday. Gonna need some snowshoes..
Sayonara 2007…
December 22, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized
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Staying at a machiya in the middle of Gion, Kyoto for two weeks from today - Mount Ibuki and Odaigahara are on the list of climbs while I’m down here…
The gods either have power or they have not. If they have not, why pray to them? If they have, then instead of praying to be granted or spared such-and-such a thing, why not rather pray to be delivered from dreading it, or lusting for it, or grieving over it?
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Chapter 9, verse 40)
