After a week of retro carbloading (is that a thing..?) I finally feel strong enough to write up our experiences of the 2010 Oxfam Japan Trailwalker. In case you hadn’t heard, all 4 Snailwalkers finished in 42 hours 28 minutes. Considering the weather and conditions, we’re all pretty ecstatic with that result.
After 100km and 42 hours, 28 minutes - 4 wet and tired snails cross the finishing line.
A lot of people have been asking me what it was like to walk that 100km in 48 hours in the rain, hail, mud and sub-zero temperatures. As has been pointed out on many other write-ups I’ve seen, it’s basically impossible to describe the psychological torment of that 100km, and to try just trivializes it.
So here’s an alternative approach – I’ve turned our experiences into a board game for you to play at home. It’s the closest thing you will get to actually experiencing a 100km in the rain without having to go to all the effort of walking anywhere. Enjoy.
Trailwalker Snakes and Ladders
You will need:
1. Four relatively unfit people
2. A dice
3. 10 onigiri, 5 bananas, 5 instant pastas and 15 litres of sports drink
4. A shower
5. An ill-placed sense of adventure
6. A lot of heart
7. 48 hours
How to play
1. Print out the board
2. Find 4 things to use as markers – 4 onigiri will do fine.
3. Cook up an instant pasta and sit in the shower
4. Take it turns to roll the dice and follow the instructions on the board,
5. All 4 players must reach the finish to complete the game. If you beat our time of 42 hours 28 minutes please let me know!
Quick one today, last chance before the real event.
Cold, lots of thawing snow, feet were completely frozen but it was a good stretch. Simon, Paul W, Paul M, Joe K and special guest Alex O. Mount Takao, ascent by the waterfall, then off to Mount Shiroyama, then follow Map-kun Simon down the other side and across the river to Sagamiko station.
I love camping. Ive never really thought about why, but a 2-day climb up to Kumotori-yama (for the second time in a month) gave me plenty of opportunity to think about that. I mean – is it really sane to enjoy strapping 15 kilos to your back, compressing your spine for a weekend, the only chance to stretch it out again being a fitful sleep on a piece of polystyrene? What kind of fool looks forward to sleeping in a woolly hat and waking up with only frozen snot for company? And yet, enjoy it I do . Where did that come from?
First and most obvious thought – my formative days in the scouts surely had a part to play in this canvas love affair. I worked my way through the scouting hierarchy as a young lad in the UK – from red-kneed evenings in the beavers to bonfire cooking in the cubs, dibbing and dobbing my way into boy scouts before graduating to the alcohol training that passes for life in the venture scouts. Looking back now I remember many good times in the scouts – like the time we watched Spaceballs and ate fish and chips in the scout hall as a Christmas treat at the age of 12. I bought my first round in a pub at the age of 15 under the influence and leadership of my venture scout leader* (2 pints of strongbow, a becks and a London Pride). I broke my collar bone on a venture scout trip and spent a giddy half a day in Southampton hospital loaded on painkillers. These are all great memories, and I can see why as an adult I have grown into a sensible consumer of alcohol and Mel Brooks, but there was also sitting round a campfire, glugging scrumpy and listening to the Levellers.
Through family trips, I also learned to love a camping holiday. I recall with fondness the trailer tent my dad purchased second hand, and the few times in the following decades that we actually used it. The biggest obstacle to more frequent use was not the thought of camping in British weather, but rather the fact that after building our extension the only way to get the trailer from the storage at the back of the house to the car at the front was to carry half a ton of wood and metal through the kitchen and hall to the front door. The thought of chipped paintwork and having to re-artex the walls was normally enough to have my dad reach for the credit card and the phone number for Durdledoor static caravan park (no trailer required). There were times we did make it out in the old 6-man beast – and what a sight that tent made out there on the wet and drizzly greens of British camp-sites, resplendent in brown and orange dayglo, with those flowery curtains that were all the rage in 1981.
Not my family camping, but something like this. Just imagine it without the sun and silly hats.
We would typically plan our arrival at the campsite to coincide with dusk, just for the added challenge of setting up in the dark. First 2 hours would be spent erecting the internal superstructure, consisting of about 6,000 poles and instructions that required a knowledge of hyperbolic geometry for success.
And what else can you do once you have put up a tent other than start cooking? I recall spending an enchanting 8 hours watching my dad and uncle Bill attempt to light a barbecue in the rain outside our tent, getting steadily more drunk on John Smiths as the evening wore on, their level of inebriation matched only by their level of incompetence at producing fire. Even as a youngster I had enough smarts on me to know that this wasn’t as funny as they thought it was – all the clues I needed were in the dark looks on my mum and auntie Jeans faces as we watched through the flapping plastic windows, arms crossed and stomachs grumbling. I think we ate a salad at about 10:30pm.
Since living in Japan my wife and I have caught the camping bug again good and proper – this time combined with the oddly Japanese obsession of having to own every single piece of equipment of the highest quality possible for any activity. So now I have a tent with mig-grade aluminum poles and super heat-retaining skin. It is waterproof, gale-proof , hurricane-proof , in fact it is probably a safer place to be in the event of a typhoon than my apartment. And the whole thing folds away into a few cubic centimeters to fit in your pocket. Well almost .
So to the training hike – packed up with tent, stove, sleeping bag and all the food and fluids for an entire weekend, we set off for Kumotori-san. It was a great weekend for hiking, and I got to camp in my trusty super-tent. Bliss. Picture then a man climbing a mountain with many things in his backpack. He carries shelter, you could even call it a home of sorts, a means of independence, a means of survival. This man, he carries a tent.
The second long hike in one weekend… Completed this training hike last Sunday after doing Tanzawa-san with Jordan and Joe on the Saturday. The hikes are coming in quicker than I can bother to write them up these days so will just put up the stats and photos to tell the story.
When: Sunday Apr 4th, 2010
Who: Paul W, Arita-san, Miyazaki-san
Where: A replay of training hike #5: Okutama station – Mt Nokogiri – Mt Odake – Mt Miktake- Mt Hinode – Hinawatada Station
A second visit to Tanzawa-san, a different route this time to keep the magic alive, and my first hike with Jordan “Keen Bean” Fisher. Also joining us Joe, also from team “Never Ever”.
It was a good day for a hike, the absence of rain taking us all by surprise after a lot of hiking recently in miserable conditions. The day before I had made sure that everyone knew I had lost my iPhone (FAAAAARRRRRRKKKK!) and hence no-one could under any circumstances miss the pre-agreed train because we wouldn’t be able to contact each other. It was thus with tail tucked firmly bewteen my legs that I made the call from a phone box at Yoyogi station to tell Jordan I had just missed the train. Ho hum, Japan being what it was there was another express train along in 10 mins so I was spared serious recriminations, and I at least proved that payphones still have a place in 2010 Japan.
The climb up was in great hiking weather – cool breeze, clear skies. Jordan bevvedf himself up on the way up with a cup of some cheap mountain hooch at every hut, so I assumed it was the drink talking when Jordan claimed it was snowing at the peak despite there being no clouds and perfect suny skies. Weird.
Drunk or not, Jordan still managed to bounce down the mountain like a puppy on amphetamines, leaving Joe and myself contemplating his clown trousers from a distance of half a mile or more for most of the hike. I’d like to think I was that fit when I was in my early twenties, but I seem to remember that period of my life being more pubby than mountainy.
Paul W, Arita-san and Miyazaki-san attempt the 2-day hike to Kumotori-san. I tag along for the first stretch to Mt Takanosu as I have to be back home by 6pm to wash my hair look after the kids.
Conditions were as perfect as can be. Mild temperatures with a light, cool breeze. Paul W and Arita-san were carrying the extra weight of camping equipment and provisions. Not to be outdone, I was carrying the extra weight of poor lifestyle choices.
Bring on the photos :
Yes, that is someone on a bicycle in the last photos. Just when you are feeling pretty satisfied about spending over 4 hours ascending 5000 feet of craggy mountain, some whippersnapper on a BMX shoots by. Kids today.
My heartrate averaged 132 over the climb, peaking at 172, and I burned 4550 Calories. I drank 2 litres of water over the whole day. Here’s the heartrate plot, for the ascent :
Green - Altitude Red - Heartrate
I turned back after the Takanosu summit and hiked the 9Km back alone to Okutama station. It was a very peaceful descent, passing only a few other hikers. As it was the first week of spring, hungry bears were about, and all my fellow hikers had their little “bear bells” jangling gently away. I didn’t have mine, so for long stretches of wilderness I was quietly alone with my thoughts. And these thoughts were mainly “what would it be like to be actually bitten by a bear?” progressing onward to “is it only in Japan that an appropriate defense against a wild bear is a #$%#$# brass bell?” Why can’t I be hiking in the US where I’d be allowed, in fact probably obliged, to carry a proper quality weapon that with a single shot could take down an angry mammoth? Such was the calming effect of nature.
I did see a wild deer. It was looking at me with it’s head tilted to one side. We shared a moment of tranquility. The deer was probably thinking who is that man without even a bell ? I had better tell the bears.
My heartrate averaged 127 and peaked at 160 on the descent. Here’s the plot. You can just make out a few bear-induced panics from time to time :
Bear free descent
Mine's the fleece
Running through the woods, down the mountainside and over the rocks I was Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Except this time, it was the Marshall doing the running.
Thankyou, I’ll be here all week. I’m also available for speeches and kids birthdays.
Kids and lovely wife are off out to enjoy the cherry blossom and would I like to come ? Let me see. Middle aged man, day off, bored and the options are :
Attend flower-worshipping festival, enjoying the symbolism of transient life and ephemeral beauty
Go electronics shopping
Fairly clear answer there. I’ve seen cherry blossom before. It’s good. Recommend it. You can also see it online. Here you go :
Save yourself fighting over the blue groundsheet. Enjoy this online moment of hanami gorgeousness.
With that decision made, it’s off to Shinjuku to worship at the shrine of Bic Camera. There are other branches of Bic Camera ( at least two ) closer to home but these are smaller affairs. The amuse bouches compared to the full Shepherds Pie. Shinjuku is the mother-ship and I gravely accepted my mission to rendezvous and dock. Set new Polar GPS watch thing and record the attempt for posterity and the enjoyment of future generations. Also to try to claim from Paul W the 10Km or so round trip to add to my miserable training total.
As you can see, I orbited around Shibuya for a while before engaging walk-drive on the trainers and hyperspacing off to Shinjuku.
Mission statistics :
Duration 1:12:55
Energy Expenditure 406 kcal
Number of Heart Beats 7227 beats
Minimum Heart Rate 73 bpm
Average Heart Rate 99 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate 128 bpm
Minimum Speed 1.0 km/h
Average Speed 4.7 km/h
Maximum Speed 5.9 km/h
Distance 5.2 km
Minimum Altitude 14 m
Average Altitude 26 m
Maximum Altitude 41 m
Ascent 56 m
Mt BicCamera
Yes that’s right extreme-sports fans. A full 5.2Km of training with a considerable 56 metres ( count’em ) of accumulated ascent and I didn’t even include the gruelling climb to the 5th floor of Bic Camera. At times, I actually broke free of the Very Light Intensity zone. Such is my commitment.
Bic Camera Shinjuku, summited. Rack up them miles Paul W.
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