Saturday, April 23, 2011

What the Hell was I thinking?! Climbing Mt. Chokai

I basically felt like a kid on a school trip as I sat on the back seat munching on the packs of jelly candies Ninon bought from the supermarket. Having hiked up and down several mountains and volcanoes in Japan during my one year of study there years ago, I was feeling fairly confident that this climb would be a piece of cake.

View driving up to Hokodate

Sophie was riffling through the Lonely Planet: Hiking in Japan guide, mumbling in French while Ninon drove us to the trailhead of the hike at Hokodate. Hokodate is basically this mini-complex with a Tourist Information center, restrooms, beverage vending machines, a hostel and two or three parking lots.

The Hokodate Trail head Complex

We parked our car and started getting ready for the hike. Ninon told me that we would be staying at this little inn/shrine at the top of the mountain and we’ll be making our way back down the next day. I had no bloody idea what this inn looked like so I just packed my backpack to bursting with a change of clothes, toiletries, bath towel and a LOT of food. I had only a personal sized bottle of water with me and I figured I’d be able to get water at the inn at the top.

"Really, Di, you're bringing all THAT?"

Ninon eyed my huge backpack doubtfully, but she just shrugged and pushed me up to the trailhead anyway. We went to the tourist office and asked for a map and a few pointers about the climb. We were told to just proceed to the base of the climb and follow the trail and then the "signs".

Mt. Chokai (Chokai-san in Japanese) is in the Chokai Quasi-National Park, a series of mountain ranges that straddle both the Yamagata and Akita prefectures. There is another, less popular trail on the Yamagata side. Chokai-san is often called the "Akita Fuji" because of it's sloping shape that can be somewhat compared to the original Fuji. Like most mountains in Japan, Chokai-san was developed through a series of volcanic eruptions, the last of which was in March 1974. For two years after that activity, Chokai-san was closed to hikers, but now welcomes hikers from all over. One of the most frequent hikers of Chokai-san are pilgrims of the Shugendo mountain ascetics.

Standing at the base of the trail, we watched groups of people sitting around, drinking from water bottles and wiping sweat from their faces. We chatted with them a bit and found out that they were hikers who stayed the night at the inn at the summit and started their climb down early that morning. It was around 11 in the morning and we were just about to get started. The other hikers were concerned that we were starting too late. We reassured them that we would be spending the night at the inn as well, so we still have plenty of time.

The base of the trail

Sophie, an avid mountain climber who just climbs everything like a bloody neanderthal (She has scaled the Pyrenees so many times, it was like going to the mall for her), had on this fantastic watch that measures the height above sea level of our current location, so we'll always know how high up we were. It also measures the number of footsteps we've taken, I don't know, just so we can brag about it later on. Sophie read from the Lonely Planet guide that it will take us about 4 to 6 hours to get to the top of Chokai-san. She looked at me wondering if I could take it. At this time, I was full of bravado and bragged that I hiked for one whole afternoon going up Mt. Aso before, 6 hours is nothing!

French people, ready to take on the mountain

With that, we started our hike.

The start of the trail was nothing spectacular, basically it was just a length of steps that goes up gradually. We saw several signs that says "Beware of Bears". I didn't know if they were kidding... probably not, in any case, we had small bells tied to our bags to ward off the bears (how this can happen, I have no idea)

Beware of Bears! Raawwrrr!!!!

I was starting to think this trek was gonna be a piece of cake, when the trail started to get steeper and the steps turned into rough slabs of stone piled together to form an incline.

Doesn't look very difficult from here, does it?

We saw a lot of alpine flowers, rolling mountain sides of grass and hedges of small bamboos. It was pretty relaxing, it was hot but there was an overcast and it made the weather pretty comfortable.

Pretty mountain flowers

We kept on meeting people going down the trail and I was surprised that most of them were old people and I mean, senior old. 65 to 70 year old men and women were making their way down with nothing but a stick to help them along. I started to doubt this climb. Lonely Planet listed it as the top 8 climb in all of Japan, and I've read somewhere that this is a mid-level mountain in terms of difficulty. But if senior people can do it then it probably couldn't be that difficult.

Blazing on!!!

Ninon, having lived in the Japanese countryside for so long, made it her business to greet every single person that came along. We would stop at 3 minute intervals on our climb to say "Konnichiwa!" to other hikers, and "Otsukaresama deshita!" ("You did a good job")to those making their way down to finish their climb. Of course, for the regular Japanese countryfolk, having a 5 feet 8 in (probably?)white woman with sun bleached brown hair talking to them in Japanese, was quite the treat. So they would stop us and ask where we were from, the usual questions, and Ninon would chat with them for a while, while Sophie and I would smile and wait for her to finish so we can resume our trek. Most of the time, these little chats would finish with the Japanese telling us to "Gambare!" (Do our best) and we would bow several times in gratitude. I was convinced that our climb took twice as long because of this show of congeniality. haha

It's the Climb~

After a while, it started to rain. It was the fox-type of rain, where it was really sunny but the drops of water just fell like pellets from the sky. We were all drenched but we didn't really mind since it cooled us off a lot.

Ninon, drenched from the Fox rain

Soon, we came to the Ohama-goya, a hut less than a third up into the climb where people can rest and buy water for the ridiculous amount of 500 (5.80USD) yen for a small bottle of water.

Sophie at the Ohama-goya. Those water bottles run for 500 yen each!

We stayed at the hut for a couple of minutes to catch our breath.

Still genki. Figures, we were just an hour into the climb

At the side of the hut, there was a small ridge overlooking a lake and patches of white that I thought looked suspiciously like snow, but I couldn't believe it coz it was about 29 degrees in there.

The Lake!

Is that snow?!

After a short rest and several photos, we went on our way. After half an hour, we came to a junction and we could choose to go left or right, as there are two paths going up to the summit. Sophie said the left one was the most direct path and we decided to go with that.
The climb from this point became more arduous than I expected. For starters, the stone steps started to disappear and what was left was a slightly muddy trail with huge boulders. There were parts where we had to use our hands to hoist ourselves up over the boulders and continue on our way. Around this time, I was starting to be amazed at the Japanese senior citizens... how the hell did they do this trek?!

Dirt and Stones

On the way, we met two pilgrims of the Shugendo branch of Shinto who were doing their annual climb of Chokai-san. They were dressed in the traditional white hakama-looking garb of their faith. They were the funniest thing because for some reason they found the three of us amusing and would talk to us in some Japanese dialect that I could not understand to save my soul. They had nothing on them but a change of clothes and several bottles of alchohol. As they hike up the mountain range, they would stop every so often to sit on a boulder or a stump, open their bottle and drink a few shots of something noxious. They would start singing and smiling and waving at people. It was like they were in their own mini matsuri and I thought they were hysterical.

They would yell at us "Oy! Ano san-nin!" (Hey! You three!) and would invite us for a shot or two. I practically had zero water left in my bottle at this point, and there was no way I was gonna drink alchohol and require even more hydration. We told them we'll be staying at the inn and they said they were going to do the same and we'll just get pissed when we get there. Ninon was smiling and laughing, I was laughing too but man, there was no bloody way.

The thing with climbing mountain ranges, you go up then down, then up again. Phew!

It was almost 1:30 when we decided to stop for lunch. We came upon a small field with ankle-deep grass and several mountain flowers. We munched on cherry tomatoes, sandwiches and carrots before I started running around feeling like Fraulein Maria in the Sound of Music.

The Hills are Aliiivveee~ With the Sound of Muuussiiiccccc~~~

Ninon dutifully took photos of me and we were even able to coax fellow hikers to take photos of all 3 of us (well, actually, one of them felt bad for us while watching me trying to balance the self-timed camera on a rock)

The Climbers and the Flowers

When we continued the climb, I was starting to get scared. We left the comfort of the steps and boulders and now had to go vertically up stone faces, walk on trails precariously close to the cliff with nothing below to catch one's fall, we had to climb up and down steel ladders that sway in the wind. I was going a bit crazy. I started asking myself what the hell did I get myself into. Ninon was just smiling at me and telling me I can do it. I was this close to asking her "Have you gone completely bonkers?!"

No rope and nothing to hold on to. Major Fear Fest

Soon we got down to a valley completely covered in Summer Snow. The entire climb felt like nothing when I saw that. It was like being in bloody Middle Earth.

Is this?! New Zealand?!

The white against the green of the mountains against the blue of the sky was breath-taking. I started hopping around, taking pictures here and there, I was raising a blasted riot.

Summer Snow!!!

I was just floored

Of course, we had to continue on with the climb, it wasn't so bad the rest of the way, just steeper inclines and the growing impatience of wanting to reach the top. After a while, we heard the drunken monks singing out loud "Gambare! Gambare!" they were walking in th bottom of the valley, along the snow, while we were trekking on the mountain side. They were so funny but I wondered if they would be ok, climbing the mountain pissed and all, but I figured they were probably used to it.

The path eases up

Finally, at around 3 in the afternoon, we reached the summit and the inn at the top. We started to inquire about availability. There were available slots for us they said, but unfortunately, the 4,000 plus yen (45USD) that each of us would have to pay to spend the night did not include water. No drinking or bathing water. No bed too, basically, we would be paying for the space to stay there, that's all.

At the top

All of our water bottles were practically empty and we knew it would be impossible to spend the night there without paying a fortune on water. We counted the hours till sundown and made a decision. We had 3 1/2 hours. We had to get down the mountain.

Short-lived success

We took the other path, which was the more indirect route but it was going along the ridge of the mountain so the trail was easier.

But from the inn, we had no idea how to get to the trail. Sophie saw that a face of the mountain led to a trail. But that face was a vertical wall with huge stones piled on each other and we had to scale the wall horizontally to get to the trail. I had no idea if the rocks were stable and I was pretty sure one wrong step and we would be dead. But Sophiie and Ninon seemed to think nothing of it, so I followed. But I was scared out of my wits! I would step with all my weight on each rock before getting on it. We didn't even have any rope with us. Ninon kept yelling at me not to look down, but of course that made me look down and what I saw was instant death and I started to mumble

"Oohh... if my mother knew what I was doing right now, she would kill me!"

Ninon took my backpack from me so I could scale the stone face easier. When I got to the trail where Ninon and Sophie were waiting, I was almost in tears. Ninon beamed at me and said

"I always make you do things you don't want to do, huh?"

I stared at her and yelled "You think?!"

The inn at the top. See the rocks at the right of the inn, we scaled that shit.

Apparently, there was a safer route from the inn to the trail, we just didn't see it. The ridge trail was nicer and safer, no cliffs and no ridiculous boulders, but because we were on a race against the sun, we had to walk very fast.

Ridge Way

Of course, being the klutz that I am, I slipped on a sandy part of the trail and sprained my bloody ankle. Right! I climbed over boulders bigger then me, scaled rough stone faces and I end up spraining my ankle on a patch of sand?! Really? How pathetic is THAT?! It was like Hiroshima all over again, only, nobody threw bread on my chest and told me to "Get up! Get!"

I sprained my ankle pretty bad and soon a lump, the size of an egg blossomed on my ankle. But I had no choice, we had to get to the bottom before sun down, otherwise, we would be in deeper shit. I found a way to walk comfortably and we zoomed all the way down.

Views from the Ridge

We got to the Ohama hut at around 6 and we could see the sun starting to set. We jumped from one boulder to another with Ninon teaching Sophie how to count in Japanese to pass the time.

Rolling hills of green

About 20 minutes before we reached the base of Hokodate, night fell and it was dark. Luckily for us, there was another hiker going down the mountain a few meters ahead of us. He probably heard us talking and waited for us so we can share in his flash light.

Race the Sun

Finally we reached the Hokodate trailhead complex and I was so happy and tired, I felt like fainting. We just hiked up and down a bloody mountain range for 8 freaking hours! I ran to the vending machine, bought a can of coke and downed it in one gulp.

We went back to the car and I cursed myself for bringing so much stuff that I didn't need in my backpack and made my climb twice as difficult as it should have been. Ninon told me the same thing many times, but oh well, what's done is done.

We pulled out of the parking lot and went back to the camping ground. Because we got there at around 8 pm, we saw several young people on the beach setting off fireworks and eating watermelon. We watched them and chatted a bit, and I felt sooo happy, like I was 22 years old again and I didn't have any problems. For one day, merged with my body aches and the throbbing pain in my ankle, I got a bit of my youth back. And at that moment, I thought, yeah, this is what people live for.

And that, dear friends, is how I climbed Mt. Chokai.

Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

2 comments:

  1. ninonMay 5, 2011 at 6:32 PM

    well, aren't we happy we did it! Ne!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. gelangenieJuly 2, 2011 at 8:24 PM

    trail looks awesome! Can't wait to check-out Japan! Thanks for the wonderful photos.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)