Let it Rain

 

Went for a few hikes today around Hinohara and Uenohara.  The theme of today's walk was "Let it Rain."

Don't feel like you have to listen to that whole song before reading the blog.  It's almost as long as an Allman Brothers Song.

I think the mountains look cool on days like this.

In the morning, I went here.  Sagami Lake is to the south.  The road running north to south on the left side of the picture is route 33.  It crosses from Yamanashi into Tokyo near the top of the picture at the Kobu Tunnel.  The sandy-looking parts in the bottom left of the picture are the Lake Sagami and the Uenohara Country Clubs respectively.

This is the Gundari Shrine.  (軍刀利神社)

Even though the mist and fog of a day like today look cool,  I hoped to catch a little bit of a longer view and decided to try my luck by taking a quick jaunt up to Mt. Jinba on my way home.  The Wada Pass ("Wada Toge") is only 700 meters from the top.  (That road up and over the Wada Pass is a real workout on a bicycle.  Heck, it's a workout just walking up it!)  

These stairs are new.  They did a lot of trail maintenance here recently.  These stairs covered about half the route from the Wada Pass to the top.

That sculpture is at the top of Mt. Jinba.  I haven't found a definitive translation of the word jinba, but it seems to mean something like "battle horse" or "war mount."

No luck on the long-distance views.  That's ok!  Rainy season will be over soon.

Come again.

Mt Sekiro, 2 years later

 Welcome cavedwellers.

Two years ago, I took my bicycle for one of the three aborted attempts I've made to go the 50-odd miles to Lake Yamanaka for a close-up look at Mt Fuji.  Each time, I've had to give up because of road closures in the mountains.

On this particular trip, I came across Mt Sekiro for the first time on my way home.  Since I had to give up on my bike ride, I thought about hiking this mountain but I discovered that the trails were closed because of the typhoon that had just passed through the day before.  This was in October 2019.  That particular typhoon really devastated the trail system and we still haven't caught up.  Coming in the fall as it had, there wasn't time to repair everything that was wiped out before the winter came.  And before that winter was up, Coronavirus came and all the repairs got put on hold. 

I've taken a peek at Mt. Sekiro several times in the more than a year and a half that's passed since it first popped up on my radar.  Finally, I have found an open trail!  

Here we go . . . 

This is near where I started.  This kind of random creativity is one of the reasons I love Japan.

The ferris wheel is at the Pleasure Forest.  (I really like ferris wheels like this.)

Can you spot the wildlife?  If you can't, you might be in trouble.

If you couldn't see it in the picture, maybe a video will help.

That wasn't the only wildlife I encountered today.  Something, I assume it was a leech, got into my sock and opened a wound that bled for a few hours.  I didn't feel anything.  The only reason I realized I was bleeding was I just happened to stick my finger in my boot to dig out a pebble and found my finger to be covered in red juice when I pulled it out.  I thought it must have been a berry or something that got into my shoe.  When I got home and pulled off my sock, I discovered a tiny wound that was still bleeding.  I mean really bleeding fast.  Blood was pouring out fasting than I could wipe/wash it away.  Applying a bit of cayenne pepper put an end to the hemorrhaging.   I didn't find the critter that did it, but I assume it was a leech.  I hope it wasn't anything venomous. 

That's Lake Sagami down below.  You can see the highway, route 20 and the Chuo train line on the other side of it.  Tokyo, the mountainous part of it at least, is just beyond the first ridge behind them.  As always, I really like looking at places I've been to before.  I've been up and down route 20 on my bicycle many times and have climbed all those mountains in the distance.

Mt. Sekiro is a walk of just a few hours.  It's not a lot of hard work.  I couldn't see it because of clouds today but you can see Fuji from the top.  Other than that, the views weren't particularly great.  It's a nice trail, though.

Caveman's Festivus--Mt. Nantai

 I celebrated another orbit around the sun this week.  My 53rd festivus.  

A few years ago, I started to celebrate each birthday, each of my festivuses (festivii?) with some feat of strength. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR3S690EF2U&t=91s

I've been in the hospital a bit lately and haven't been in the mountains since June 1.  And, since it was time for the annual feat of strength, I decided to take a special trip and hop a train up to Nikko to climb Mt Nantai, one of the 100 Famous Mountains in Japan.

Since it is rainy season, the views weren't spectacular but it didn't rain and I got home safely.  

I was just about the only tourist there.  I stayed at an Air BnB on Monday night and my hosts said they hadn't had guests since May.  When I came off the mountain and got to the station, I found all of the souvenir shops were closed.  It was like a ghost town.

For this trip, I started at the Futaarasan Shrine (二荒山神社).  

The shrine is right next to Lake Chuzenji, so I stopped there for a few pictures first.  It was so nice to be the only person there.

There were the expected traditional statues and buildings you would see at a shrine in  Nikko.

This shrine maintains this mountain.  They have a lot of cautionary information at the bottom.  Perhaps they get daytrippers here that aren't ready for the steep climb that Mt Nantai is.  It's only about 4.5 km from the shrine to the top, but it is an ascent of about 1,200 meters in that distance.  

That's about 300 flights of stairs!

They even have their own hiking plan notification form they expect you to fill out and leave with them.  I already had filed a plan with the authorities online so I tried to decline.  The old dudes staffing the shrine insisted and when they saw I was planning on going beyond Mt Nantai and exiting the mountains somewhere else, they tried their best to talk me out of it.  They wanted me to just go up and down Mt Nantai.  Considering that I had invested so much time and money into this trip, I wasn't about to be satisfied with a 3 or 4-hour hike.  I told them what they wanted to hear and went on my merry way.  I had left my phone number with them so if they were concerned that I hadn't returned to them, they didn't show that concern by calling me!

I don't hold it against them because it is their mountain . . . but I was a little disappointed to find out they charge you ¥1,000 to climb it.  If I'd known all this, I probably would have chosen a different route.

This picture is getting near the top.  That is Lake Chuzenji.  Mt. Nantai dominates it.  I'll post a picture I took in November from the lake looking up.

This is what it looks like from below.

Another picture from the top.

That's a little shrine just off the top.

These are my footprints for the day.

I saved a bundle on bus fare.  

The bus companies have different plans for traveling around to the tourist sites.  You can spend about ¥2,000~¥3,000 buying a pass to get around for the day.

My Air BnB host was kind enough to drive me to the Futarasanji in the morning.  I was expecting the one-way bus ticket back to town to be ¥1,150 but because of where I exited the mountains, it was only ¥410.  (I still think that was an expensive bus ride.  It was only 2 or 3 miles.) 

I got on the bus at the Uraminotakiiriguchi Bus Stop.  This is just down the street from the Uraminotaki.  (Uramino means something like "back view" and taki means "falls").  That would be a nice place for a family picnic.  There is a parking lot with a public restroom and picnic area next to the river and a 500-meter wooden walkway along the river to some falls.  I was the only person there.

Until next time.  Take care of yourselves and watch out for bears.

On second thought, I'm more worried about pit vipers.  Watch out for them.  I've seen many more of them than I have seen bears.  And look out for wild dogs.  The old dudes at the shrine were telling me to be careful of wild dogs.

And, by the way.  If you've ever had a birthday, be grateful.  

The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.

G.K. Chesterton

I was diagnosed with cancer this year and had two surgeries to take care of it.  It looks like they got it all and I'm going to live!  I feel like I hit some kind of health or life lottery.  I am so grateful to be able to keep hiking and loving and experiencing beauty and all the other wonderous stuff that goes along with being alive.  

I am consciously grateful for this gift of life to the Giver of Life.

Want to see another of the Hundred Famous Mountains?  Check out Mt. Kobushigatake

On progress vs. perfection

Greetings cave critters,

File this post under things shared around the campfire.  There won't be any pictures of mountains.

I will show you this picture of an insect.  It has absolutely nothing to do with this post.  It just happens to be one of my favorite pictures of all time.

For much of much** my life, I have suffered from perfectionism.  I suspect that most perfectionists are driven to do things absolutely correctly and won't put up with any mistakes.  My perfectionism is a bit different.  To me, my default was that if something couldn't be completely right, well then just screw it.

**I'm getting better.  I'm going to leave that typo right where it is.  That's my way of helping you get over your O.C.D.  Two birds with one stone!

A few things over the past few days have had me musing about this topic of progress vs. perfection.

The other day I was working out by the river.  In these COVID times when the gyms are often closed, I have gotten creative in finding ways to work out.  One of my favorites is to bike to a river and use river rocks for weight training.  With all those rocks God put there of various shapes, sizes, and weights, who needs a weight room?!  Anyway, as I was happily grunting my way through a caveman-worthy workout, it dawned on me that I was at a place on the river that was a milestone of sorts.  A few years ago, when I started getting in shape I remember the first time I rode my bicycle there.  It's about 8 miles.  That seemed so far at the time.  Now going there is really nothing.  It is about as taxing as walking to 7-11.  I go there to start working out.  (Come to think of it, back in those days, going to 7-11 was probably as taxing as riding 8 miles is today.)

Later that afternoon I was home and was hunting through the medicine cabinet for something or other and came across a whole variety of ace bandages and rehabilitation-type bands that I needed in the past.  I had forgotten all those things.  For the first year or two of working out, it seemed like there was always at least one part of my body that was out of commission--a frozen joint here, a muscle strain there . . .  It seemed like I always had to work out around the parts that weren't working.

Now, I feel really no pain anywhere.  I feel more healthy and athletic than I did when I was in high school or college.

Why?

Receiving encouragement from someone who loved me and focussing on the joy of progress rather than the insistence on perfection are two pieces of the puzzle.

My exercise life now and all this fun I have in the woods started with my blushing bride's encouragement before her daddy pulled out his shotgun.  (OK, there was no shotgun involved, but you know what I'm talking about.)  We married a bit later in life.  (At least in my life.  She's much younger than me.)  When we were courting, I had been living a sedentary lifestyle for a long time.  I was fat.  I had been smoking for over 30 years.  When I broached the topic that I smoked with her, I told her that I wouldn't be surprised if it were a dealbreaker for her; and that though I wanted to quit I had never been really able to put them down.  She replied with the most amazing response, "Well, I understand.  I just wish you could live a long time so we could have a long, happy life together."

That type of loving encouragement with the added dimension of not compelling me to quit was just what I needed.  I knew smoking was bad for me all my life but when my teachers, society, parents, etc. said "Don't do that!",  it just made me want to smoke more.  (When I see smokers being shunned in society today, part of me wants to tell them I'm down with their struggle.)  

After decades of smoking, I was able to put it down really easily.  Ridiculously easily.  The other times I'd tried to stop were torture.

Not long after that, as our wedding was approaching, I decided to try to shed some pounds.  Now, most of my life I have hated exercise.    I never understood those weirdos who talked about enjoying working out.  I had no idea what an endorphin rush was.  Is that a trick play in football or lunchtime at Seaworld?  I just knew what wheezing and pain were.  The invitation "Let's go for a run." sounded to me as much fun as "Let's go bang our thumbs with hammers."  I was never a jock in school.  (My perfectionism wouldn't allow me to play any sport unless I could beat people like Michael Jordan.)  In the army, I learned a lot of exercises, but it always felt like punishment and I never saw improvement.

Anyway, I got a personal trainer for a month.  I made some changes in my diet.  It's amazing how effective exercising and eating less crap can be when you're really out of shape.  I can't remember exactly how much, but I think I lost probably 10 pounds in the first month.

That was 5 or 6 years ago.  Now I continue to still enjoy working out.  It's not about expecting perfection though.  I shoot for perfection but I don't berate myself for not attaining it.  That is the kind of thinking that kept me sitting on the floor eating Cheetos and smoking Marlboros all those years.  I still have a bit of a spare tire--but I'm not going to obsess over that.  I am just happy not to be the Michelin man anymore!  I do challenge myself.  I would go so far as to say that I even "fat-shamed" myself sometimes when working out.  "Come on, fatso, is that the best you're got?"  haha  But I do that tongue in cheek.  I know the only one I'm competing with is myself and I really do enjoy seeing the positive changes in my body and mind's condition.

There're a few sentences in a spiritual book I like a lot:  

Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Some people might take this to mean that we shouldn't try to be saints.  That's not what it means to me.  It simply means I'm not going to give up because I'm not a saint now.  Just as I'm not going to give up working out because I'm not as fast as Usain Bolt or as strong as Arnold Schwarzenegger.  (I am going to keep trying to catch up with them though.  Who knows? I might just do it.)

I had a similar experience with music throughout my life.  I started playing guitar when I was about 10.  I liked it but dropped it after a few years because I hadn't become as good as Eric Clapton.  Decades later I picked it up again and was able to improve and enjoy it when I changed my attitude.  I stopped expecting perfection of myself and remembered it's supposed to be about playing.  Then I was ready for music because playing is fun.

I'm at a loss for a pithy statement to end with so I'll add my version of this quote that I've heard.

I may not be the man I ought to be or the man that I will be--but thank God, I’m not the man I was.

I'll be away from the mountains for a few weeks.  Hopefully I'll have something to post around the end of June.

Lk 5:16