Mitsutōge – The Three Peaks

I’ve always avoided climbing Mitsutōge. Sure it’s steeped in history and tradition, but I just couldn’t overlook the TV antenna flanking two of the mountain’s three sacred peaks. During my last trip to Kawaguchiko, I opted for neighboring Kurodake, a higher flank and one of the 300 famous mountains. The vistas across the lake to the northern face of Japan’s highest mountain were tranquil if not inspiring, as few hikers visit its tree-lined heights. Mitsutōge, on the other hand, is crawling with visitors no matter the time of year nor the weather. A quick on-line search revealed a plethora of English-language blog posts and trail notes, coming in second to Mt. Fuji itself. Yes, the peak would remain off my Hiking in Japan site, but perhaps, I reasoned, it was still worthy of a quick exploration.

I arrived at Kawaguchiko station by bus from Matsumoto, and immediately swam through the sea of crowds to the coin lockers tucked away on the western side of the station. It took quite some time to sort through the kit and repack, and after a short trip to the restroom to deposit a load of a different kind, I scooted over to the bus information counter to inquire about the next bus to the trailhead. “The final bus just left”, came the response from the weather-beaten brows of the bored attendant, obviously worn down from the constant inquiries of visitors looking for the tourist information counter. I was counting on the 10:35am bus to the trailhead, but I was informed that this bus only ran on weekends. Dejected but still determined, I popped into the 7-11 to stock up on lunch. The clerk was particularly inquisitive yet relieved when I told her that Mt. Fuji was not my intended destination.

Back at the station, I easily hailed a taxi for the 5000 yen ride to the start of the hike. After passing by a troupe of foraging monkeys, the driver eased the vehicle along the exposed shoulder that followed the narrow mountain stream, depositing me at a large pile of snow piled up at the unmarked bus stop. I bade my chauffeur farewell and stared up at the ice-covered forest road directly in front of me. I took a sip from the water bottle before strapping on the 4-point crampons, whose spikes easily bit into the hard ice. This deserted road led me higher towards the western flank of the mountain, terminating at a small car park sparkling with a clean restroom.

From here, the trail lay buried under 50 centimeters of fresh snowfall. The crampons did little other than to serve as a depository for dense, wet snowfall, and after every third step I had to kick my feet together to dislodge the burdensome clumps of white clay. Still, it was better than having to sit down on the moist snow to unbuckle the crampons, so I held out until a bit higher on the slopes, where the snow conditions improved under the cool winds. I soon passed by a party of four sporting blue jeans and sneakers. I kicked steps past them as they looked on with an air of envy. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of spring hikes in Japan, it’s to expect the unexpected and always carry the 4-pointers.

The wide path, which I am pretty sure doubles as a gravel highway in the summer, switchbacked through the sleeping forest towards the summit plateau. The going was easy as I simply followed the other footprints from like-minded mid-week summiters. An unmarked jeep sat on the shoulder of this path, buried up to its neck in wind-blown drifts. Perhaps the hut owner uses this mode of transport in the green season? Another jeep lay parked a bit further up the path, where a signpost led the way to Mitsutōge-Sansō, which I reached just a few minutes later. It was high noon and time for a snack. I settled into a bench that had luckily been swept free of snow and peered across the steep valley towards the puffs of cumulus that held Mt. Fuji in its grasp. Oh well, so much for the views of Fuji that draw thousands of climbers throughout the year.

After a quick bite, I dropped down to a saddle and up to Mt. Kinashi (木無山), the first of the trio of peaks. It was little other than a knob on the ridge, but after a bit of scrambling, I accessed the bluffs on the eastern side of the peak and took in this splendid vista:

Crowds were beginning to converge from all directions as I retraced the route back to the hut and along the ridge to a second hut and junction down to Mitsutoge station. The second, and highest of Mitsutoge’s triumvirate is a knobby knuckle by the name of Kaiun, reachable on a series of half-buried wooden steps. The summit signposts indicated that this was indeed Mitsutoge mountain. a huge disservice to a peak that literally means ‘good fortune’. Despite being usurped of a name, the weather did bring me the good fortune of viewing the entire chain of the Minami Alps clothed in a wintry white which was a pleasant consolation prize for not being able to see Fuji.

Sharing a mountaintop with twenty of my closest strangers does not rank high on my fulfilment list, so I dropped down the northern side of the summit, past a towering antenna, and down through the forest to an unmarked junction. My feet led me further to the north to the final summit Takanosu, literally ‘the hawk’s nest’. The mountain was impossible to miss, thanks to the virtual city of TV antenna that would make for a great place to bring up some hawk offspring if not for the electromagnetic waves. The summit was not only deserted of people, but severely lacking in summit signposts as well. Perhaps they were buried under the foot of snow blanketing the top.

Satisfied, yet hardly done, I looped back around to the junction below Kaiun and dropped steeply down a flight of slippery wooden stairs. The path dropped to a saddle and then, by complete surprise, turned left and traversed directly under the cliffs of Byobu-iwa that make Kaiun such a mecca for Kanto-based rock climbers. Though no spidermen were visible on this outing, the line of pitons fastened to the rock face suggest that the belay times on weekends must rival those of the queue at Space Mountain, but this is not a hypothesis I would even want to prove. The only rock climbing you’ll see me do is when I’m forced to do so, on the near-vertical routes in the Japan Alps, where fixed chains and ladders make the going easier.

As the path dropped lower, I took off the crampons and coasted past a series of Buddhist statues to a mountain pass adorned with stone Jizō. From here, it was a snow-free tramp through the darkened forest until popping back out on the pavement, where it was a dreadful walk of about an hour on the asphalt jungle. As soon as I arrived at the station, the skies opened up in one of those familiar spring downpours. This rain continued overnight and changed to snow, so when I woke up the following morning in Kawaguchiko, it was a winter wonderland. I wandered the sleeping streets before dawn in search of a nice place to capture the morning light on the cone.

Although I doubt I will visit again, it was good to have marked the mountain off the list. The peaks surrounding lake Saiko look worthy of further investigating, a chance that I hope to seize in the more comfortable green season.

 

 

 

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A Weekend in Mie part 2

The drive to Owase, a small fishing village nestled on the Pacific coast of southern Mie Prefecture, took several hours and we coasted into our business hotel just as dusk settled on the sleepy town. After check-in, we walked the quiet, narrow streets and ducked into a seafood restaurant with some interesting choices on the menu. In this part of the Kii Peninsula, they eat everything that can be caught in the sea, including the vulnerable ocean sunfish. We each ordered a dinner set featuring a sea creature neither of us had heard of. The set came with a entire fish simmered in a dark broth accompanied by miso soup, rice, and a couple of other side dishes. The hotel was a bare bones affair, located atop a convenience store, but it did have the added bonus of a western style breakfast included in the price. The next morning, we took full advantage in the top floor restaurant affording views of Mt. Takamine, our goal for the morning. Owase sits directly in the middle of the Ise-Hongu section of the Kumano Kodo, and would make for a worthwhile stopover for trekkers making the walk connecting two of Japan’s holiest sights.

Mt. Takamine has two main approaches, both of which entail a large amount of walking on concrete. Nao and I opted for the forest road from the north along route 425, which we reached after some careful navigating on the narrow road. We parked at the terminus of a long tunnel and followed the sign as it led us along the abandoned pavement towards the trailhead. The route was fortified with cedar trees bursting with fresh pollen emissions, which set off the histamine alarms and put the nasal cavities into full production. We both suffer horrendously from the seasonal pollen, thanks in large part to our prolific mountain quests that have put us over the threshold of sensitivity. There was nothing to do but to move swiftly up the road and hope for favorable winds blowing in from the Pacific.

It was a 5-km walk along the road, which wound past a waterfall and areas of rockfall before terminating just below the ridgeline. We entered the cedar forest and, after passing by a bear trap, arrived at a junction where the southern trail merged into one main route for the summit. It was here that we left the evergreen mess behind and rose into a stupendous forest of old grown hardwoods that had shed their summer coat for the season. The path climbed along the exposed ridge, the gradient rising with each advancing step. Soon enough, we reached the summit plateau, which afforded some of the best views that Kansai has to offer.

The broad summit rocks overlook the eastern aspects of both the Omine and Daiko mountain ranges. In fact, this is one of the few places in Kansai where you can view two Hyakumeizan lined up side-by-side. On our right, Odaigahara rises majestically to its knightly plateau, all but free of snowfall despite its 1500 meter height. To the left, the Omine mountains, weighing in just under 2000 meters in height, lay painted with a thin layer of wintry white which brought the mountains of Nagano to mind.

The views did not stop there, however. After climbing a boulder just behind the high point, we could peer back down to the coast towards Owase village. It was one of the best Kinki mountains so far, and with such splendid weather and lack of visitors, it was hard to tear ourselves away.

Eventually we did slither back to the forest road and retraced our steps to the awaiting car. On the ride back to Osaka, we discussed the remaining mountains on the list. While I had thought that Takamine was mountain #98, I learned to my regret that I had failed to count one other peak, so there were still a trio of mountains left. Still, three mountains could easily be conquered before the end of the year, an attainable goal if I set my sights on it.

 

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A Weekend in Mie part 1

With just a handful of mountains left on the Kinki 100 list, Nao and I head deep into the mountains of Mie Prefecture for a rare 2-for-1 weekend. If all goes according to plan, then we could have two of the mountains with the worst access under our belts. An early start was in order.

Nao picked me up at 6:30am on an overcast Saturday in mid-March and programmed the GPS to the entrance to Osugi gorge deep in Nara Prefecture. We reached the start of the forest road, partially blockaded by a plastic A-frame contraption with a metal bar laid on top. These portable structures are used in lieu of a proper gate system on roads with ongoing construction work. I hopped out and moved the barrier so Nao could drive through. This maneuver, while questionable in its legality, would save us a half hour of walking to reach the trailhead. The likelihood of any construction vehicles passing through this outlet was small anyway, as the bulk of the repair work lie a further 10-kilometers up the narrow, twisting road.

We parked the car at a broad turnout affording views across the Miyagawa Reservoir to the towering buffs of the Daiko mountain range. Snow flurries floated down from the off-gray clouds hovering above as we geared up for the hike. Both of us had our GPS devices connected to two different hiking maps, as the net research done beforehand suggested a seldom used track in a constricted valley of cedars. The bridge marked by previous hikers was reached in about 20 minutes, as we left the comfort of the sealed road and breached a mountain stream that fanned out in three directions, looking in vain for something that resembled a track. On our right, a massive landslip towered above up, directly over the red marks on our maps that indicated the mountain path. Dejected, we retreated back to the forest road in search of plan B.

Instead of retreating, we continued about 50 meters beyond the bridge and spotted a small signpost indicating the entrance to the trail. We followed a meandering dirt road that looks like it was just constructed a few days ago. There is no reason for this new path other than to burn construction budgets before the end of the fiscal year. At the terminus of the road, a faint trail led into the forest above, and after following it for 10 minutes, a plastic signpost confirmed our suspicions that we were indeed on the correct path to the summit.

Despite the lack of visitors, the route was easy to pick up thanks in large part to the lack of undergrowth in the brisk winter air. In the summer it would be easy to lose this path completely under a thick blanket of ferns, weeds, and other plants fondling each other for sunlight. It was a gentle, steady climb through the nondescript forest of about 90 minutes until reaching the ridge, marked by a ‘Missing Person’ poster planted firmly on the junction point. Four years ago, a 67-year old solo male hiker had failed to return home after a planned outing on Mt. Senchiyo. He had apparently taken our exact path up the mountain, but if I were part of the search-and-rescue party, I think my time would be better spend scouring the landslip at the foot of the mountain where we initially thought the path lie. My guess is that he climbed up one of those fingers and met an unfortunate fate when the route became too much to handle.

We turned right at the junction and followed the edge of a sprawling section of clear cut forest affording views of the remainder of the Daiko mountains floating off to the north. Mayoi-dake? Check. Kogamaru? You bet. Myojin-dake? Sprinkled in white. The lack of snowfall in this section of Nara Prefecture is perplexing, but is partially due to the relatively mild winds of the nearby Pacific Ocean. The breezes ensure that wintry precipitation falls as wet rain in these 1000-meter high mountains.

Once past the deforested sections, the trail climbs to a rocky crest before easing out on the meandering contours of the summit plateau. We reached the high point after 20 minutes of gently rolling hills and sat down to enjoy the trees, for that is all we could take in on the overgrown summit. On a scale from 1 to 10, I’d give Senchiyo a 2 or 3 – it’s not a mountain I’d rank high on places to revisit, especially if further visits meant stumbling across a decomposed body.

After a brief rest, we retreated back to the junction at the saddle and continued walking north along the ridge to the secondary summit of Senjō, which sits among a pristine forest of mature hardwoods. Evidently this section of mountain was too steep and too remote for the cedar planters to reach. Future hikers should take note to visit both of the peaks in order to fully appreciate the contrast. On the descent back to the saddle, I lost a rubber trekking pole tip cover and had to revert to using just one pole on the drop back to our parked vehicle. Also, somewhere along the climb down I broke the adjusting dial on my wire shoelace system and had no way of fully tightening my right shoe. With another mountain planned for the following day, I could do little else than to just make due.

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