Chichibu-Tama-Kai

Desperate for a break from concrete and 7-Elevens (although the corn dogs are good), I left my apartment under gray skies and light rain and headed for the train station. Who else is afoot early on a drizzly Sunday morning? Uniformed schoolgirls and people headed for the barber, of course. I caught the train for Yorii, headed north for the first time, away from the city and my classroom at a nearby university. My plan was to through-hike Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park, camping along the way and climbing Kumotori-san, Tokyo's highest peak.

Miso potatoes roasting in the mountains

As the train rolled along, I entered a Japan different from the neon lights of Shinjuku. The landscape greened little by little and apartment blocks were replaced by sturdy, tile-roofed houses. Forest and town alternated with close-cropped rice plots, streams and ponds. In the station Yorii, the plastic and steel of Tokyo was replaced by a simple wooden bench worn smooth by years of patient train waiters. I've always been drawn to street food and meals on the go, from samosas and chai on the Indian rails to plastic-bagged fruit on a Guatemalan chicken bus. There on the platform, I got the chance to experience a Japanese food tradition: trackside noodles. I shared the counter with an old man and enjoyed a sustaining bowl of tempura soba. Hot buckwheat noodles on a misty autumn morning. We slurped in silence as the middle-aged proprietress chopped leeks and stirred the broth.

The train to Mitsumine-guchi finally arrived, and the dozing businessmen of the Tokyo trains had been replaced by smiling hikers in colorful gear. Their happy chatter enlivened the train car as we traveled deeper into the mountains, comprised of steep, forested hillsides. Here and there tall plumes of bamboo brightened the dark canopy, while the villages provided a glimpse into rural life. Fruit trees, gardens, dogs and cats, roofs of dark tile glistening mutely in the rain, a log yard full of damp wood, the occasional shrine.

I caught a lucky break at the train station. I employed a tried and (usually true) travel technique: stand around outside the train station looking really confused and trying to read the wrong bus schedule. Don't ask for help - it will come to you. In this fashion I got a lift from a friendly fellow from Munich and his Japanese wife. We chatted in German about the poor state of Japanese beer she drove up and up into the mountains, to Mitsumine Shrine. I thanked them for saving me a lot of time and trouble, ate some delicious roasted potatoes (glazed with miso on a bamboo skewer), and hit the trail.

The path to Kumotori-san

Finally, back in my element: green mountains in every direction. Twenty miles lay ahead of me, along the ridges to a mountain hut on the flank of Mt. Kumotori, then up and over the peak, through the woods and down to the village of Oku-tama. I took a deep breath and started walking, my boots crushing acorns and chestnut husks into the damp earth. There had been plenty of rain the past few days, and the cloudy skies hinted at more to come. No matter - I had all my rain gear and a sturdy tent. I whistled Neil Young tunes and climbed up onto the ridge. 

It took longer than I expected, probably because I kept stopping to enjoy the scenery. Interesting cloudscapes filled the deep valleys, and I gave the trees a lot of attention. Several kinds of oaks and maples filled the woods, along with chestnut and a few conifers (some pine and what looked like a hemlock.) It eventually started to rain, just after a snapping twig revealed a small group of deer, unafraid and obviously used to hikers. I pulled on my jacket and reached the Kumotori mountain hut shortly thereafter. Valuing my privacy, sleep and meager supply of yen, I opted to camp a little way down the trail. There must have been twenty other tents stacked up along the only flat ground to be had. I was lucky to get a spot. Still, the hut meant the only decent water source for miles, making it well worth a little noise. I was intrigued by lights, snacks, linens and place settings so far from a road, and promised myself that at least once in Japan I'll stay in one those huts. But instead I returned to my tent and fired up my Jetboil, staving off the blowing fog with coffee, curry rice and a chocolate bar.
 

                                              

I woke early to a blue sky and, after a coffee, breakfast and another coffee, I packed up and started up the mountain. The views from the top of Kumotori-san were awesome. From the highest point in Tokyo prefecture at 2018m (6,659'), I was lucky to get enough blue sky to see Fuji in the distance: a perfect cone floating above the clouds, wearing a pale crown of fresh snow. I snapped a few photos and headed down into the clouds. 

The next few hours were spent walking through miles of woods made dark by a gray, overcast sky and blowing mist. The air was cool and damp, and beyond a hundred yards in every direction the trees disappeared into a milky fog. All sound was muted, and after a while I fell into a kind of walking trance, daydreaming my way along the damp trail. . . Suddenly, a weird, shrieking grunt and commotion on all sides. Monkeys! I snapped back to attention and watched, surprised and fascinated, as a troop of more than a dozen Japanese macaques brought the forest to life. Some raced through the tree tops with a crashing of branches, while others scurried along the ground, in and out of the mist. Obviously used to hikers, two or three stopped to watch me, rocking back on their haunches and gazing around in an unhurried, casual way. Several ran cautiously, one by one, out of the trees to drink from a puddle in the trail. These weren't at all like the scabby, shifty monkeys I'd seen up close in Indian cities. These were wild macaques, northernmost of all monkeys, famed for soaking in hot springs and rolling snowballs. I stood watching for almost half an hour, goofy grin on my face, until the tinkle of an approaching hiker's bear bell sent the monkeys running. I hope I meet them again.

  Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata)

 

Last Days in Alaska: Denali and Kesugi Ridge

After three months of leading camping tours all over Alaska, I wanted my own adventure. It was an amazing summer. Wild animals, wild weather, campfires, sockeye salmon, skyscraping glaciers, fantastic folks and some of the most humbling mountain scenery on the planet. It was also a lot of work: exhausting but tremendously satisfying. In a typical day at work under the midnight sun, I wore a lot of hats. Chef, driver, doctor, guide, naturalist, mechanic, bartender, boatman, storyteller. The adventures (and misadventures) were all worth it, but by the time early September rolled around, I was ready for a solo ramble. I rented a car, picked up a bear can and headed back north, Denali bound. Traveling without a plan has seldom let me down, and those ten days were no exception. 

I ended up visiting friends, laughing a lot, learning a little mandolin, meeting some wild characters, runnning into a few grizzlies, enjoying a few very tasty brews, munching my way through miles of blueberries, counting Dall sheep, catching a few snowflakes and enjoying the best Alaska Range views of the summer. 

 Dwarf birch

 Late fall in Denali

I started off by heading into Denali for a few nights in the backcountry. In the park, the fall colors were a little past peak, although the golds, browns and few remaining reds cast an austere beauty over the landscape. I hiked 6 miles along the Upper East Fork River, straight into a stiff south wind coming down off the mountains. Along the way I almost had a run-in with a mama grizzly and her three cubs who were foraging in a blueberry patch. Despite following all bear safety guidelines, despite constantly scanning with binoculars, despite clapping and yelling in thick brush to avoid a surprise encounter, I still almost walked right into them. 

I had just shouted myself hoarse bashing through a little gully chocked with yellow-leafed willows. Back in the open, I quieted down a little and started taking pictures. I pulled up the binoculars and scanned in all directions. No bears. Out there, on my own, I didn't really want to see bears. I've seen enough, and although seeing a bear up close in the wild is a powerful experience, it usual means a detour, delay or change of plans to avoid them.

I clapped a few times and started walking again, straight into the wind. The berry patch was covering an old gravel alluvial fan, debris that had flowed down off the mountain. There was just enough of a rise in the middle of the patch to prevent total visibility, and suddenly my heart was in my throat. As I came over the crest, I saw that big hump, and her neck muscles working as she browsed the berries, head down. The tips of her fur glowed gold in the sun. She was sixty feet away.

Within a few seconds, I was pushing back through the willows and crossing the cold river, putting as much distance between us as I could. The Upper East Fork is a braided stream hundreds of yards across at that point, almost completely flat gravel bars with just a few cold channels twisting back and forth down the wide, open valley. It wasn't until twenty minutes later, sitting on the opposite ridge, that I realized how lucky I'd been. From a half-mile off, I saw the three cubs, furry blobs following their mother slowly up the ridge, away from me. She hadn't scented me, she hadn't seen me, and she'd been too busy eating. I was able to get away quickly and quietly.

 Digging a tundra toilet

I had a great few days exploring the valley from my base camp, visiting the glacier at the head of the valley and doing a little rock hounding. The Alaska Range is full of amazing, multicolored rocks that tell the story of the folding, thrusting and faulting that made those mountains. I passed the afternoons drinking coffee and watching the Dall sheep on the mountain across from my tent. The rut hadn't started yet and the rams were off on their own somewhere. A big band of ewes and yearlings moved slowly along the steep slopes. I counted 28, while also watching a lone grizzly about a mile away, north of the sheep. From my vantage point, he spent hours pawing at the tundra slope in vain. Looking for ground squirrels?

During my final night the wind swung around to the north, and it started snowing around midnight. I woke to 28 degrees F and a couple of inches around the tent. No matter, I was warm and had coffee and a hot breakfast of peanut butter oatmeal. I hiked back out, following the hours-old tracks of a lone bear as I went. His tracks were still fresh in the snow, and he'd ripped up clumps of tundra here and there. The lone male I'd seen the day before? I kept a sharp look out but never met him. Instead I dug the ice on the river and dreamed of a hot shower.

  Fresh snow on the peaks along the Upper East Fork

 Mandolin and beer at the cabin

 McKinley and the Alaska Range from Kesugi Ridge

After getting out of the park, I hid out from the snow and gray skies at my friend Sue's cabin for a couple days. I read, slept on the couch and managed to learn Friend of the Devil on her old mandolin. Just as I was wondering what to do next, the weather cleared. Despite swearing not to believe another Alaskan weather forecast ever, the multitude of sources predicting a few days of clear skies got me moving. Over the course of leading trips all summer, I'd driven past the Denali viewpoints on the George Parks Highway eleven times and seen the mountain once. That's not a good average. But every time I drove by, I'd look the other way at the trails leading up to Kesugi Ridge, a long lump of granite famed for incredible views directly across to to the Alaska Range and Denali itself. In good weather, naturally.

After waking up and having a cup of coffee, I hit the road. Within three hours, my mind was blown. I was standing knee-high in peak fall tundra staring slack jawed at the entire range, with Denali front and center, thirty miles away but close enough to touch. Not a cloud in the sky. I sat down among the crimson, orange and yellow of bearberry, blueberry, dwarf birch and willow and stared and stared. I had that view for two full days and most of a third. I walked for 28 miles along the ridge, from Little Coal Creek to Byers Lake, past tarns and finger lakes, down through a birch glade, across a bog and back up above treeline. It was the best three-day Alaskan finale I could have hoped for. I encourage all you to do it if you get the chance.

Waking up to The Great One

Climbing Mount Fuji

Ignorant of time

Far above the drifting clouds

We climbed the mountain 

A few days before the summer solstice, I stood with a friend on the edge of a cliff late at night. We leaned on a fence hung with old buoys, staring at the mountains across Alaska's Cook Inlet. A stiff breeze whipped up whitecaps on the gray water and rattled the purple blossoms of nootka lupine growing all around us. The midnight sun, unseen behind thickening storm clouds, soaked the entire range in hazy pastels of peach and purple. Completely entranced, I stared and stared at the hulking volcanic cone of Mount Redoubt, illuminated by a soft shaft of storm light. My friend finally broke the silence. "Dude? What are you thinking about?" I blinked my eyes as if waking up and turned to him, smiling.

"Climbing Mount Fuji."

A bad picture of Mount Fuji, taken with a phone through the window of a moving bus

Yesterday I woke up in my tiny apartment near Tokyo at five in the morning. By six I was on a train headed downtown, caffeinated, completely stoked and jamming out to Dr. John (Locked Down! Amazing album!) I met Ian and Dave at the bus station and, after more caffeine, off we went. The frenetic buzz and bustle of Shinjuku soon faded to anonymous urban sprawl, which thankfully greened in stages until were in the countryside. We passed rice plots, steep, forested hillsides and crossed ravines thick with bamboo. Someone pointed out the bus window. Fuji! From so far away, snowy cap temporarily absent, it seemed somehow unimpressive, but as we neared the great mountain its magnetism was undeniable. It dwarfed everything around it. It filled the sky. The monstrous cone towered above the clouds.

The bus brought to the Kawaguchi-ko Fifth Station, and we hit the trail. The many trails to the summit are stung with 'stations', mountain huts for food and overnight accommodation. During the July and August climbing season, when more than 200,000 hikers swarm the mountain, the mountain is a beehive of activity. Most follow the time-honored tradition of arriving at the trailhead in the evening, climbing to a hut, spending a few hours 'sleeping' shoulder-to-shoulder, resuming the climb in the pre-dawn darkness and arriving at the summit to watch the sunrise. Outside of the official climbing season, the huts are closed and bus schedules are slashed to the bone. We went anyway.

Climbing past one of the closed stations with the summit a long way off

 Arriving mid-morning didn't leave us enough time to get up and down before the last bus left for the day. No problem, I assured Dave and Ian, I checked the internet and two of the huts were still open. As soon as we arrived, we were told in the friendliest possible terms that ALL huts were closed. At that point, determined to carry on, a form of group mentality known as 'somebody else will figure it out' took hold. We could call a taxi, no problem, we'd get back, whatever. . .

Fortified by Snickers bars and hard-boiled eggs, we started climbing the Yoshida Trail around 10:30. In the distance were mountain ridges, lakes and farmland, partially hidden by shifting clouds a thousand feet below. Above us, a few light clouds blew across a deep blue sky punctuated by that implacable black cone. Wide and smooth at first, the trail soon began to steepen, leaving a shrubby tree line populated by birch and pine. I was happy to meet an old friend from Alaska, as I found ragged-leafed alder growing along the trail. We climbed out of the trees and onto coarse, open slopes of uneven rock.

It's 1500 meters (5,000') from the K. Fifth Station to the summit at 3776 meters (12,389'.) Most of the ascending route is tough (there's a separate descending route), due to loose rock, overall steepness and altitude. Higher up the mountain, I started to take lots of shorts breaks to catch my breath and enjoy the view. Despite warnings of a typhoon on the way and an uncertain weather forecast, it was a beautiful day for a hike. Fuji towers above the surrounding countryside, and it felt like sitting with the gods on Mount Olympus, gazing down on the towns and farms of the mortal world. It was awesome.

The main benefit of climbing in the off season is peace and quiet. This was hardly marching with the hordes: we had the mountain to ourselves. Over the course of nine hours on the trail we ran into twenty or thirty people. Not bad on a mountain often described as an anthill! With every meeting we mustered up our best Konbanwa! and kept on moving. Where are you from? How do like Japan? Good luck! The Japanese are very friendly people, and I felt a genuine sincerity and warmth in these greetings. We were fellow wayfarers on Fuji-san, after all.

One of many trailside torii

 No, I don't know what was so funny. Must have been the altitude.

Up and up we went, and I started to feel the altitude. Despite constant hydration and periodic Snickers breaks I felt a slight headache coming on. Still, the epic views, good company and rhythmic crunch-crunch-crunch of my boots on the trail were more than enough to distract me from any earthly discomforts. Every little while we passed through torii, spiritual gates found throughout Japan at the entrances of Buddhist or Shinto shrines. Evidently I wasn't the only one picking up Fuji's divine vibes. We finally came within sight of the summit, with one last torii to go, guarded by a pair of granite lions. From there it was only a few more steps to the crater. Fuji last erupted in 1707 and, following the devastating earthquake off the coast of Tohoku in 2011, has shown signs of increased activity. But why dwell on doomsday scenarios? We exchanged high fives in the bitter wind, saluted the sky and headed back down.

The solitude afforded by a late September summit was incredible, but came not without problems. The final hour of our descent was in the dark, and although we had headlamps and the weather was fine, we arrived back at the Fifth Station to find it completely shut down. Hotel dark and silent, gift shops closed, information center shut. Luckily some strangers in a car, waiting for their friend, helped us organize a taxi. Aching and exhausted, we laid down on some benches nearby until the headlights of the taxi came swinging into the dark parking lot. We swerved and screeched (literally - the cabbie chirped the tires on a few corners) down the mountainside and into Kawaguchiko. 

Through deliberate ignorance we hadn't bothered to find out much about trains heading into Tokyo, and as the time dragged on I got an uneasy feeling. Due to the fact that I live in the Tokyo equivalent of 'the sticks' (actually an adjacent prefecture,) I had to travel from the southwest all the way into the downtown fray in order to catch another train northwest. There came a certain point when I realized I probably wouldn't make it. Hiking boots clomping across the platforms, I ran through a few stations until by a stroke of luck I found a train that would get me close to home. So I spent the midnight hour in a completely packed train car, a big awkward foreigner covered in caked sweat and volcanic dust, swaying in the midst of chattering teenagers and the ubiquitous dark suits. I counted myself lucky to make it back to my apartment at 1:30, after a $70 taxi ride and a dog-tired stagger through the dark lanes of my neighborhood. 

Fuji was worth it.