Snailwalkers

Attempting to completely disorientate Simon and his Gore-Tex acquiring frenzy, this weekend’s hike was in gloriously clear weather. Takao san guchi by train from Shinjuku in central Tokyo, and in less than than an hour, you’re in mountain-ville. Six of us set off up the 稲荷コース ( Inari-mountain course ) from the station, towards Mount Takao. A medium-grade 3Km hike with some magnificent views.

Mount Fuji view from the trail to Mount Takao

Mount Fuji was, for once, not hiding. Neither, seemingly, were most of urban Tokyo, who in their hundreds had popped out to do the same course. It was nose-to-tail for the first km or so, only thinning out as we neared the top. Simon was sporting his Gore-Tex spats, I was in my luminous satsuma Arc’teryx jacket, and Joe was breaking in his new North Face boots. We were, in contrast to the Thursday’s fateful expedition noted below, stupendously over prepared. I was hoping for a monsoon, a tornado, an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, preferably all four simultaneously, so I could generously offer to shield everyone with my 3-ply Gore Tex and stormproof zippers until help arrived. We enjoyed a balmy calm and 100-mile visibility. You could have hiked it in flip-flops and your underpants, but it was hard to complain really.

Takao-san summited, we ate and took some photos.

Paul, Mt Takao

Joe, Mt Takao

The Team

Revived, we set off for Mount Jimba along the Mount Shiroyama trail. Most of the day-trippers seemed to be “doing” Takao only, so we saw only a few others for the rest of the day. Poles were now out in force, as snow was on the ground. Simon, with his new Black Diamond poles, had clearly summited Mount Gear and then found a way to climb yet higher. We were all deeply jealous proud.

The correct name for the trail from Mount Takao to Mount Jimba is, and I’m being careful to translate this properly from the official map, “the trail from Mount Takao to Mount Jimba”. It is 15.3km along a ridge, past Mount Shiroyama and then on to Jimba. The trail was all snowed in, with those icicles hanging from the trees I had noticed, but not had the life-force left to photograph, on the earlier Thursday hike. This time though, the weather remained fine and the hike was genuinely enjoyable in the same way, and to the same degree, as Thursday’s hike was miserable.

Somewhere during this 15Km or so, Prateek discovered the ability to transport himself in space and time. I think the suspiciously low-tech looking pole he was using, which seemed to be absent any manufacturer logos, performance claims or even an interchangeable-basket-system, may have been involved. At various points along the trail, Prateek would fall back behind us, so far back he was not visible, and then, despite us traversing a single-file track along a mountain ridge in clear daylight, he would appear a little later in front of us, leaning casually yet meaningfully on the mystery stick.

No ordinary stick ...

I haven’t known anything like it since Mr Benn, the famous denizen of Festive Road, had some similar trouble with a shopkeeper.

As Mr Benn teaches us, the common usage of organic matter spontaneous transportation in the Seventies was by shopkeepers, to surprise customers or to escape from seamonsters. It was basically a gag. Today, times have changed. The ability to silently and instantaneously travel from one place to another must have tremendous potential for space exploration, the military, and for Thursdays, my big-meeting day.

We made it to Mount Jimba by about 4.30pm. I demonstrated that by using a modern digital camera with built-in panorama stitching and a blend of experience and skill, it is now possible to take 3 ordinary photographs and turn them into one ordinary photograph, but wider :

Mt Jimba. Feel the width.

A shortish 5Km straight downhill and we found the bus stop to take us back to Takao station. Prateek stopped teleporting himself and we all went home using conventional physics, on the train.

Found a couple more shots, both taken at the highest point on the CP1 – CP2 route. We sat down for a minute or two, no longer as it was freezing and getting dark. Not many photos on this last part of the day as my fingers were frozen and working the camera was hard. Mind you, not as hard as for Simon, whose camera simply expired permanently due to water ingress, despite being in an inner jacket pocket – on a man wearing two jackets.

In the rain and cloud at 2500 feet

Simon having a great time

Whipped these up for some fun

More …

After the near-death experience from stupidity exposure earlier this week, I gave in and bought some proper clothes. Well, a proper Gore Tex jacket. Bewildering choice so I decided the only thing to do was rate the various brands on how light, expensive, garish and ridiculously named they were, and the winner on all four counts was this number, the Arcteryx Alpha SV ( for “SeVere” .. like you, my resistance crumbled at this point ) in orange :

Orange

I still have some way to go before matching Simon, whose addiction to Gore Tex is bordering on a fetish, but I hope this keeps me dry. I’m also fairly confident I am unlikely to be the last one found if the fog descends again.

Date : February 11th 2010

Who : Paul M and Simon

Where : Odawara to CP2

Conditions : Cold, Rain, Fog

Report : Fairly challenging, fairly miserable but character building slog through the rain and fog to CP2. Simon was testing his new boots, GPS watch and Gore Tex stuff. I was trying to remember the trail, and largely failing. Fortunately I had copied the detailed map books from the Trailwalker site to my iPhone, else I think we’d still be somewhere in Hakkone now.

No one else seen on the trail for the whole day. The snow has largely gone, washed away by the rain, but some patches remained near the summit. Lots of icicles hanging down from the trees.

Simon, at this point wearing two jackets

Simon, on the way to CP1

Will add to the general applause for sticks, I mean trekking poles. A huge help on the downhill sections. As CP1-CP2 was mainly a climb up a river of mud, they also helped on the ascent too. My snowboard jacket became waterlogged after about 25 minutes, my “waterproof” over trousers and skiing gloves weren’t, so I was pretty cold and soaked through for the whole mission. Misery was our constant companion, of the heavy, gnawing, lonely, soulful and desolate kind known only to long-haul air passengers and Toyota publicists.

We only made it to CP2 just as it got dark, and had to hot-foot it down some mountain road to get back on to the main road, before catching a bus back to Odawara.

Somewhere near the end of the mud bath of CP1-CP2 the “off” button was nudged on the GPS watch. Only noticed after we got onto the relative dry and warmth of the bus, hence the slight weirdness at the end, but still it recorded great data up until then :

Training Hike #2

Full data, including animated elevation tracking, at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/24436239

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Attributed to many but let’s claim it for Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, or just plain old George Santayana. Writer, philosopher, traveller, Cambridge student and Harvard lecturer, counting among his students T.S. Eliot ( famously an anagram of “toilets” but that’s another story ) and Gertrude Stein. So not an entirely wasted life. Let’s take his advice on looking at the past. Specifically, past Trailwalkers.

Fortunately our own philosopher, Reza, was able to record some information about Trailwalkers, 2008. I refer research-minded readers to his original post for the full detail but the table reproduced below will suffice as quick-reference :

The keen-eyed will note that once you’ve gone up a mountain, down a mountain, up another one, and so on for 100Km, the total ascent starts to become quite surprising. 5420m of surprise, to be exact. That is phenomenal. That is higher than, for example, Loma Larga, high in the Chilean Andes. It is a total ascent of five times England’s highest peak, Mt Snowdon ( 1085m ).

In the European Alps, we have Mt Blanc ( 4800m ). Impressive, but were you to climb it and stand upon it’s summit, you would still be half a vertical kilometre short of our total.

So, let’s pause, Santayana-style, to ponder and philosophise for a moment …

What have we learned from these historical data ?

Clearly, nothing.

We signed up again. If anything, an even more stupid decision than the first time, when at least we could claim we had no idea. We are indeed, condemned to repeat.