|
|
|
 |
 |
| The
train was its
usual efficient and comfortable self, but the bus was a bit more
exciting. Along a narrow twisting mountain road, the driver obviously
felt that sharp steep hairpins were best approached with a good bit of
speed. Sitting right at the back behind the wheels, we caught plenty of
air on the bumpier sections, even if the bus didn't quite. But we got
to our destination of Hirogawara in one piece and in good time. After a
quick snack, we headed steeply up through the forest. There's not much
to photograph in a thick forest, so I didn't. After 2 hours, we reached our destination of the Shirone Koike hut. Last time we passed, it had seemed like a nice little hut beside a pond, in a clearing below the final ascent. It was still beside a rather murky pond, but we could not see the mountain for clouds, and the hut had turned into a building site! Fortunately, it was still in operation with enough accommodation in what seemed to be a temporary annex while the main hut was being rebuilt. The scale and expense of these mountain hut operations never ceases to amaze me. The huts are generally a full day's walk from the nearest road, perched in a few square metres of flat space and absolutely everything - including that earth-mover and the massive steel frame and concrete foundations of the hut, let alone food and fuel - has to be brought in by helicopter (think of the food miles). |
 |
 |
The next
day dawned bright and early, although Kitadake was wrapped in
cloud and stayed that way all day. We were grateful for the shade while
climbing up the steep kusa suberi (grass slide). |
 |
 |
 |
The selection of flowers was slightly different to our previous trip which was in early September - here are a few mediocre pics. |
| Up on the ridge, we stayed in cloud and occasional light rain past the Kata-no-koya hut where we had a 2nd breakfast, the summit of Kitadake (so that makes two visits and no views) and down to the Kitadake sansou, where we stopped again for coffee and food (3rd breakfast at 10:15am) and to decide what to do with the rest of the day. |  |
| Lots
of people were deciding to stay here and
cut their days short because of the poor weather, but the cloud and
rain did not seem to be worsening (it was only typical Scottish
weather!), so we pressed on over Ai-no-dake, our second hyakumeizan of
the day. |
 |
 |
We continued rapidly down to the Kuma no daira goya ("flat place of the bear"). The rain held off and the cloud even lifted as we approached the hut, which was almost empty, so we did not regret our decision. Unfortunately, the food was pretty mediocre - some slop with the merest hint of meat in it. It would at least have been quiet and restful, but a gaggle of 16 turned up and took over one side of the hut (which was still barely half-full with them - amazingly quiet for peak season). For some reason, they decided to get up noisily at 3:30am (it may have been earlier) and chatter and rustle bags for an hour before breakfast. One of them contrived to fall noisily off a bunk and knock herself out, which did not elicit much sympathy from us or the other normal guests. The group only ended up leaving at 5:30 like the rest of us so their early rising seemed utterly pointless. |
 The place of the flat bear? |
 The flat place of the dog? |
| The next day was bright and mostly sunny. wifh enough cloud to keep it from getting too hot. Our route was a pleasant stroll along a ridge, part in forest and part open. |  |
 |
 |
 |
The peak of Shiomi-dake had some apparently rare pink flowers on it, so we took photos of several in the hope of getting the right one. There were lots of slightly hazy views, including Fuji-san for the first time. |
 |
 |
| Lunch at the
Shiomi-dake hut
consisted of some instant noodles and a tin of peaches. We were not
tempted to stay at this very basic hut, and ploughed on to
Sanpuku-mine-goya, which turned out to be large, spacious and
comfortable. It also had
proper food! The night was filled with thunderstorms and heavy rain which continued right through breakfast (the first raw egg of the trip). The forecast was poor and jules was whining about how nice it would be to spend the day resting at the hut, but the rain had just about lifted by the time we were ready to go so we set off feeling slightly apprehensive about the long day ahead. We got up onto the ridge in about 45 minutes, by which time it was exposed and windy, still very cloudy and showing no signs of improving. If there had been an option to shorten the day we might have pushed on, but with a long ridge walk and another 300m of ascent to look forward to, it was not a difficult decision to turn back, hoping that the next day would bring better weather. |
|
 The misty view from our bedroom window |
 The rest of the day was spent reading and snoozing. |
| Back to the home page. | On to page 2 |