Training hike #6

When: Sat 14th Mar 2010

Snailwalkers: Paul W

NeverAgain’s: Andy, Joe (“the marathon men”)

Other Snailwalkers excuses:

• Tights in the wash (Arita-san)
• Rescuing relationship after gore-tex jacket girlfriend birthday present fail (Simon)
• Needed some quality time with twitter (Paul M)

Where: CP7 to Finish

Distance: 22 km (longer than the officially posted 20km due to slightly lost detour and walk to onsen)

Moving time: 5hours 50 mins

Stopped time: 1 hours 09 mins

Moving average: 3.8 km/h

Overall average: 3.1 km/h

Total ascent: 2835 m *

Weather: a barmy  18 degrees at Surugaoyama station, dropping to 10-12 degrees at the peaks. Sunny with clouds the whole day.

Trail condition: Theres been heavy fresh snowfall above 800m this week, especially Mt Mikuni (2feet on top)  and the whole section onwards from CP8. At these temperatures it should be gone soon. Slushy wet snow – no need for crampons (boo) but spats / gators looking pretty handy.

* I have a low confidence level in this figure due to the fact that I had to swap batteries 3 times on this hike. This is because  my wife enjoys putting flat batteries back into my man draw, so I have to take 3-4 spare sets of batteries with me wherever I go assuming that at least 50% of them will be duds. GPS altitude calibration therefore a bit shaky on this one – and I had to delete quite a few wayward points on the GPS track to get a sensible profile map. If anyone knows the correct accumulated vertical ascent for this section, please let me know.

cp7-finish

Report

So, another weekend, another early start to catch a 7:20am train. Clear blue skies in Tokyo made it feel a bit less of  a chore, and the weather stayed good for the whole day.

This was my first time on the new trail from CP7 sinec they changed this section after 2008. The new route is a corker – a long long uphill, getting gradually steeper until you are literally scrambling up the last few meters to the first peak – Mt Furo. Here we met another Trailwalker team out training - apparently after a heavy night out at the  ACDC gig on Friday night. Ouch. From there its supposed to be a steep downhill section to Mineska Pass, unless you’re following two numpties who managed to convince themselves and half of the other  team to take the wrong trail off the peak. The other team turned back but Andy and Joe persisted in our little detour, taking us  15 minutes down the wrong hill until the GPS saved the day (see map below!). Oh well, all good training and it makes for a pretty set of symmetrical bumps on the profile map as we back-tracked to the peak and tried again. Luckily the ACDC-fans   seemed to be doing a fast pace and we were spared the embarrassment of bumping into them again.

So far so easy(ish).

Then its a long slog up to Yubune-san, an anonoying climb up that always seems about to end but never does.

Time for a quick re-fuel at CP8 and a few minutes in the sunshine…

Straight out of CP8 you hit the ascent up to Mt  Mikuni, which has to be the toughest point in the whole trailwalker. Even after  just 15km this was killing me, the deep snow not helping in the slightest.  It was a long, slow climb staring at the distant dots of Andy and Joe as they floated up.

After that its a skip and a hop to Mikuni-san – the final peak in the 100km trail, and one with the most spectacular view if its clear. It’s all downhill from there and I could  feel how nice the onsen was going to be a long time before we got there to round the day off .

Some more photos from Andy: