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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 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 : 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” ) and Gertrude Stein ( “Registered Nut” ). 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.
New gear reviews
Photos
 Kevin goes for a bit of stamina training halfway up the first climb.  The long haul up-hill - we started to hit the snowline at about 600m  Beautiful alpine conditions at around 800m, although the novelty of walking on packed snow wore off after about 20 seconds  High-point for the day : 870m and a quick break in the snow  After dropping off Kevin and Aditya at CP2, the remaining three of us made it to the finish at CP3 just before sunset and were treated to a magnificent Fuji view, and an express bus to Hakone-Yumoto for an onsen. Oxfam Japan have partnered with “Justgiving” to make supporting this cause easy. Money donated goes directly to Oxfam Japan. You can find our official donations page at http://original.justgiving.com/snailwalkers, or click the orange button on the totaliser thing on this webpage. Decided to attack my illotibial band with this foam roller thing :
Alright, not the most exciting purchase of all time. This is the thing they used at the physio when I was getting my IB stretched. Hurts like being hit by a car – something I have some experience of – but supposedly helps. One 10 minute session “rolling” and the outside leg becomes curiously soft and pliant. Another 10 minutes and it bruises. Any longer than that, and you might as well just go play in the road until you are hit by a truck, it will be quicker and hurt less. So last time I did this, I had broken my foot and still had illiotibial band syndrome, a long name for a simple condition someone once described as like having a craft knife roughly inserted into the side of your knee. Not an ideal starting point for a 100Km mountain jaunt but fortes fortuna adiuvat and all that. Despite this, before starting the event I had inwardly mocked those that were spending a hundred bucks or more on that simplest of accessories … a stick. Or in some extreme cases, two sticks. Should not prove hard to find a stick in several hundred acres of mountain forest, I thought, gamely. Predictably, my knee gave out in the first stage and I spent 95Km longing for a stick, secretly hoping some enterprising local might have setup a walking stick outlet in the middle of the trail. The only sticks I found on the trail were just sturdy looking enough to fool you into putting all your weight onto them, before snapping and leaving you in a heap doing that pathetic double-take people do when they trip over in public. Paul W had a fine stick, but I think he had it specially made, or imported it from Middle Earth or something. There was none like it. So, this time, I’m not going to pooh pooh sticks, instead I am going on an artificial stick hunt and I intend to buy a quality pair.  Sticks, I mean, "Trekking Poles" Of course you can’t just go into a hiking store and ask to buy a stick. You’d reveal yourself as hopelessly ignorant of the immense demands of walking up a hill. The mere mention of “stick” and you’re marked out as some appalling city-dwelling weekender who probably can’t read a map, navigate by the stars or stalk and trap a deer. No, you have to request a “trekking pole”. Bear Grylls wouldn’t need a carbon-fibre stick trekking pole but I’ve convinced myself I’m in the market. My name spelt in Japanese, is, after all, ポール (“Pole”). |
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*Not really. Well, Simon is quite Bond-like when he's not wearing tights. Copyright © 2012 Snailwalkers |
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