Camptastic (and Training hike #11)

In honor of Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, everyone’s favorite repressed homosexual, a camping trip should surely be in order.

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 hike

Who: Paul W, Arita-san, Miyazaki-san, Paul M (for day one only)

When: Sat/Sun 10th/11th April 2010

Route:

• Day one: Okutama-station –> Taka-no-su-yama (1737m) –> Kumotori Oku-tama-goya hut / campsite (1813m)
• Day two: campsite (1813m) –> Kumotori-yama (2018m) –> Tokorohata (575m) –> Okutama stiation (by bus)

Trip Distance: 43.2 km

Moving time: 10h 19m

Stopped time: 6h 9 min

Moving average: 4.2 km/h

Overall average: 2.6 km/h

Max elevation: 2018m

Accumulated elevation: 3075m

Arita-san looking very happy with himself

First peak of the weekend,Takanosu

The view from my tent in the morning. I shit you not.

*Incidentally that venture scout leader has left  a trail of corruption throughout the pubs of Hampshire, and now happens to be my brother in law