We Call It Fun

Traversing Kaikomagatake and Hinatayama

A flurry of hyperlinks to bear maulings, punctuated with nervous jokes about the elevation gain, I began to suspect Andrew wasn’t entirely comfortable with this venture. It did not soothe me that a sold-out bus had forced a late change of plan: a route that was unmarked, hutless, and laced with chains and ladders hung at angles fit for flagpoles. Carlos, in his peculiar idiom of menace, had described it as “fun.”

Friday night, same old drill: Azusa 53 out of Shinjuku, the city tapering off into black ridges and rice fields. Step off in an old mountain town. Hunt down a taxi, fail, then finally flag one, driver staring like you’ve brought him trouble disguised as yen.

Unlike last week, Kaikomagatake was terra incognita, and darkness makes strange mountains stranger still. And yet, by the time we were dropped at the trailhead, Andrew’s spirits were buoyant. Bear bell chiming, bear spray stowed. But, nothing soothes quite like yapping, and Andrew and I are virtuosi of yap.

We began at half-past midnight, a furtive trot past Ojiro Campground and through the shrine of Chikuu-Komagatake, its torii barely discernible in the darkness. Then the climb, sudden and severe, and... company! Eyes flashed in our headtorches, startling us into a momentary panic before settling into watchful curiosity. Deer. The deer, we told ourselves, were augurs of safety. “If the deer are here, surely there are no bears.” Right?

Along the Kuroto One.

We weren’t alone in other ways either. A few solo runners, madmen compared to us, breezed by on the more technical sections. We stopped briefly to help a lost runner. Later, to marvel at the stars.

After four hours, the horizon began to pale, and we pushed harder, racing the slow approach of dawn. Shichijodaingoya offered our last chance for water, which we gratefully took. Beyond the treeline, the reason for the climb unveiled itself: a vast ocean of clouds stretching endlessly, interrupted only by jutting summits. Yatsugatake rose across Hokuto, Fuji creeping behind the southern peaks of the Minami Alps. We stopped, accepting that a summit sunrise would elude us, and let the scene wash over us. A red sun began its ascent behind the summits of Saitama, and the mountains, clouds, and light composed a panorama that demanded silence.

Yatsugatake piercing through the clouds.

The summit came later, a bristling ridge of chains and scramble sections, each one a test of vertigo. It was “fun” then, unthinking and fearless, though hindsight reveals just how sharp the teeth of that ridge were. Mitsukashira then beckoned: a traverse seductive in its emptiness, unmarked as if by design. Confidence - no, arrogance - blinded us to the necessity of detouring for water. Thus chastened, we plunged into a forest primeval, a green sarcophagus whose trails had been etched, perhaps, by a shogun’s ghost. Bushwhacking restored us to the ridge, but the mood was tinged with fatigue, the thrill of the climb now shaded by hard-earned caution.

Ascending to the summit, then descending toward Mitsukashira

Oiwayama now loomed, its approach a concatenation of absurdities: chains, ladders, plastic wires greasy as eels, gradients better suited to alpine ibex. Every step pressed the limits of what I had yet encountered in the mountains. Andrew faltered, and guilt crept in on me as we clawed our way to the summit. There, human contact: a duo of hikers to whom we offered dire warnings, our public service for the day. Food revived us, marginally, though the comedy had curdled. What had begun as a testing adventure was now a seminar in survival.

The finale: Hinatayama, “the beach in the sky,” a phrase which mocked us like a travel brochure for Hell. Andrew had no use for its photogenic delusion. We dived into the shade, snatched at calories, then fled downhill, propelled by twin fantasies of Pocari Sweat and onsen oblivion. Salvation came in the form of three middle aged women, who, after initial scepticism, consented to chauffeur these two dehydrated gaijin to civilisation. There, in the steam, we underwent baptism. God bless onsens, those aqueous confessionals where the sins of idiocy are washed away in sulphurous contrition.

In retrospect: missteps, a few; lessons, enough; pride, mostly intact. Andrew handled with reserved fortitude. I? I played the role of guide, if not with confidence, then at least with a carefully maintained calm. We live, we climb, we err, we bathe. And we call it “fun.”