SEPTEMBER 2007

#50 – TATESHINA

By six, unsubstantial instant noodle breakfast digesting in my gut, I hauled boots onto a pair of trail weary feet, already unenthused at the prospect of a further three days torture all the while bound in their dark, moist confines.  Laces tightened and pack on back, I bade my hosts and fellow lodgers farewell and stepped out into a grey, cloudless morning.  Wisps of cloud, sailing high in the blue were lit by the sun.  A breeze danced in the treetops, a noticeable chill flitted through the air.  I regained the main trail North and skirted the edge of a precipice, flimsy ropes strung between trees all that separated me from thin air.  Sunshine touched the mountains.  Glancing back to the South I was halted by the view across to the mighty edifice of Io-dake, an ancient crater half crumbled away into the forests lying beneath it.  Out to the East, a cloud sea, painted pale pink by the rising sun washed over the tops of distant hills.  Out there lay my past.  After briefly plunging into a dark stand of woodland I emerged on the other side of a minor rise dubbed Naka-yama into an open field of boulders and low creeping pine.  There I spied my future.

A heavy lethargy hanging over me refused to be shaken.  I succumbed and settled down amongst the boulders and took in the vast panorama on the horizon.  To the North-West the crags of the Northern Alps rose dark blue against the clear September sky.  Yari, the Spear, easily distinguishable amongst the soaring peaks.  Further to the West, the line of the Central Alps was accompanied by the mighty Ontake-san volcano.  To the immediate North, however, beyond a pass filled with pine forests, lay Tateshina, another volcanic peak, it was the goal for the day, mountain number fifty and the halfway home mark.  I munched away on a seven o’clock helping of chocolate almonds, a mountain fly traversed the lens of my camera, slowly sleep came on as my limp frame soaked up the warmth of the early autumn sunshine.  Who was I to resist?  Daydreams came and went as I listened to the breeze rustling the creeping pine.

At some point, a surge of adrenalin shot through the lethargy.  How long had I been there, nestled in the boulders?  Five minutes?  Ten?  Twenty?  It was time to get a wriggle on.  I dragged myself out of my little nook, rock hopped back to the trail and slowly made my way down through the forests to the pass below.

Midday passed unnoticed and I followed a rising trail out onto grassy, windswept hill country, the day’s trudge had brought me around the back of Tateshina and to its Northern side.  A large cloud parked itself between the sun and I and, unable to find shelter from a chilly wind, I slid into my coat and sat down in the grasses alongside a small shrine and eyed off the final push.  A lone hiker, strolled past, clutching a pair of hiking poles like he was strangling a pair of chickens and offered up a hearty “Konnichiwa.”

The climb up Tateshina wasn’t as strenuous as it had appeared.  The trail rose gently through a wood beyond another roadside hut before hitting the final summit scramble, a half-hour boulder hopping effort straight up the scrubby face of the mountain.

By the time the summit was achieved sunshine had returned to the world.  There on Tateshina, I stood atop no regularly cratered volcanic peak.  Before me lay a flat, round field of grey stone, some 300 metres in diameter.  To my left, a wooden hut had been fastened to the rocky rim and sat unmanned and silent.  I hopped across the boulders splashed with yellow paint marking the way onward and headed for the summit marker.  Off to the right, a small shrine sat amidst the rocks.  Overhead the sky was clear but the view back towards Yatsu-ga-take had been obscured by afternoon cloud.

Standing over the tiny summit marker I let out a hoot of joy.  The half-century was on the boards.  Not since standing atop Rishiri, when I turned South from the tip of Hokkaido, bound more or less for Osaka, had I the feeling of reaching a significant milestone.  Now the push for 100 was on.  Now I could start counting down in my mind instead of up.  It wasn’t time to get cocky, though.  There were still more hard yards to be eked out, especially if winter was angling to throw a spanner in the works.