The 500th that almost got away

Welcome to my cave.  Sit down by the fire and let me tell you the story of the 500th that almost got away.

Choose a comfortable rock.  This may take a while.

Sometime in late November, a glance at my mountain climbing app notified me that I had climbed about 470 mountains in Japan.  (It only counts Japanese mountains.)  I was a bit surprised at the number and thought it would be a neat way to round out the year if I were to get it to 500 before the end of the year.

Japanese mountains, generally speaking, are much like Japanese people.  Many of them are not too tall, but there are a lot of them and they tend to be crowded together.  Because of these facts, it isn't uncommon to cross 3 to 5 peaks on a day hike.  In order to achieve my goal of 500 by the end of the year, I planned on doing some hikes I'd done before that I knew had a lot of peaks.  

In the first week of December, I did a long hike that took me over 10 peaks or so.  When I left home, the total on my app was around 470.

When I got home and checked the app, the total hadn't changed.  I thought maybe it was a software problem.  I tried turning my iphone on and off.   I thought maybe that company's engineers had the day off. 

The next week, I tried my next hike.  The same thing happened.  I left home with a total of around 470 and it had not changed when I returned.

That was when my mind was really blown.  I realized the app counts each mountain climbed only one time.  It was hard to wrap my head around the idea that I have climbed that many different mountains.  I can only imagine how many times I have summited in total because there are mountains that I have climbed 6 or 8 times.

In order to bump the number up to 500, I had to go a bit further from home than usual to be sure of getting to mountains I'd never climbed.  I was getting close to 500 by the end of January.  

Then I got the idea to try and climb someplace special to commemorate this number.

David Lowe over at https://ridgelineimages.com/ mentioned searching the  Japan GSI Map database for a certain mountain name recently and that gave me the inspiration to see if there are any mountains named 500.  My search revealed two mountains named 五百山 ("gohyakusan"), which means "500" "Mountain". 

  Japan GSI Gohyakusan in Niigata            Gohyakusan in Nagano

Wow.  Now I had a mission.

At that point, I was at 498 on my count, so I knew that my next hike had to be it or I would miss the chance to commemorate the 500th by going to one of those mountains.  They are both small and far away.  I would never want to go to the trouble of getting to either of them unless it was for this special occasion. 

One of the gohyakusans is in Niigata.  The other is in Nagano.  I really have no experience in either area where these are and I had no idea what the lay of the land was.  I decided to try the one in Niigata.  Niigata is on the Sea of Japan side of the island (I'm on the Pacific side) so the weather is different.  I knew there was snow on the ground, but had no way of knowing how much until I actually went there to see.  I knew I would be going through ski country to get there.  I thought the mountain was on the other side of ski country but I was wrong.

After 3 hours on trains and half an hour in a taxi, this is what greeted me when I got out of the taxi on my way to the trailhead.  Oops.

I knew right away that I was not going to get to that mountain that day.  This was the condition of the street and the trail was still a mile away!  I didn't want to waste the day, so I tramped around for about an hour through the waist-deep snow before turning around and walking along the street to the station.

It was a failure and an embarrassment but if I didn't go there and try I would never have known whether it was possible or not.

It wasn't a total waste.  It is a gorgeous area and the walk to the station through the snow-covered rice terraces was beautiful.

I decided to give Gohyakusan in Nagano a try next. ** That "summit" seemed much more doable from a simple map recon because it's just a hilltop next to a tertiary road.  As long as the road was passable, getting to the top would be no problem.  After all, for this hike, it was more about the name of the mountain than for anything like the grandeur someplace high and hard to reach. 

**There was another hike between these two but that's another story.

I called the local police station to inquire about the snow conditions on the road.  I was sure the local constabulary could give me a good appraisal of the roads in their village.  Especially since their station was right at the base of the hill I wanted to climb.

The cop I got on the phone was non-commital.  He wouldn't give me an answer about the road.  He told me to call the tourist board at the village office.  

I called there.  The woman there didn't want to give me an answer either.   She told me she'd have someone call me back from the public works department.

I got a call back from the public works dept. and that guy said that that road isn't plowed in the winter and probably is impassable.  He also said something about the abominable snow monster, thundersnow, and sharknadoes.  

He left me with the distinct impression that it might be so bad that cats and dogs might be even living together there in mass hysteria.

I decided to rent some snowshoes for this try. 

So, for the second time in about a week, I got up at 0 dark thirty to ride a shinkansen 3 or 4 hours to climb a pimple of a hill in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.

(Mrs. Caveman really is a sport to put up with me.  She's the best.)

This was my first time actually stopping in Nagano on a train.  I've made slight incursions when hiking on the prefectural boundary lines with Nagano but I've never gone there by train.

This is what the platform in Nagano looked like.

After arriving in Nagano Station, it was a 40-minute bus ride to a little place called Shinshumachi (Shinshu Town).  This sign is one of the first things I saw.  "Roukakuko" means Lake Rokaku.  It was lovely.

Then, I started up the hill.

This is what the road's condition was like for 90% of the journey.  I began to wonder if the bumble needed to migrate north for the winter.

Thankfully, eventually, there was some snow!

And I put on my snowshoes for the ascent.  The "peak" was just off to the side of the road and was a hike of only a few hundred meters.

It was just enough to make the rental of the snowshoes worth it.

Voila.  I brought this paper in case there was no marker.  I was almost right.  There was a marker but it was very small.

This makes it official.

Coming down.

As always, thank you for dropping by my cave.  I really love the mountains and am happy to share them with others.

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Mountain #499. Lake Miyagase area again. (Still leech-free!)

This was another lovely day in the Tanzawa area.  Lake Miyagase, like all the dammed-up reservoirs around here, offers some beautiful views.

This was a short trip.  I only wanted to get to one new peak on this trip.  According to the climbing app I use, I am approaching 500 peaks.  I have something special in mind for #500 so yesterday's goal was to get to #499.

Considerable planning and expense have gone into the plan for number 500 so you can imagine my shock when I got home yesterday and saw this statistic on my iphone.

Say what?!  How could I possibly have miscounted?  

The plan I had/have for #500 is meaningless except for my 500th.  Drastic measures were necessary.  

I deleted yesterday's hike from my app.  Voila, problem solved.

I am now a mere tenderfoot with only 499 peaks under my belt.

So, onto yesterday.  This sign is where I started.  This trailhead is right next to a bus stop.  From there, it's only an hour or so hike up to Mt. Bukka.  

Mt. Bukka has some great views.

Looking to the west and northwest, you can see the Minami Alps.

Looking north, you can see up to Okutama and beyond to Saitama. 

I was also able to see Mt. Nantai, Mt. Tsukuba and Tokyo Skytree with the naked eye.  I could even pick out the mall we live by with binoculars.  I've never been able to catch a glimpse of it it from this area.

The trailhead where I started is at a bus stop.  There is also a parking lot and some picnic benches nearby.  The point where I popped out of the woods back onto the road also is a similar setup.  These mountains are not very high yet offer some spectacular views.  Despite these good points, these hills aren't as heavily trafficked as mountains like Takao.  

I recommend this area for families, date-type hikes, or to other people who want to get out but are not interested in anything too strenuous. 

The buses to this area start at Hon-Atsugi Station.

Stay tuned for #500.  I should be posting about that trip real soon.  I'm hoping it will be interesting.  I've put a fair amount of planning into this hike and am even spending a lot more than the usual tank of gas.  (Feel free to hit that support me button if you can!  Papa needs a new pair of socks after all this walking.)  

I don't want to give away any spoilers.  I'll just say I will be going much farther from home than I usually do and I'll be employing some special winter equipment my next time out.

Thanks for dropping by my man-cave.  Looking forward to having you by again.

 

Hike from Nippara Limestone Cave to Daikyodaninomine

Greetings cave lovers.  Today was a day that started, appropriately enough, at a cave.  This is the Nippara Limestone Cave.  You can reach it by bus from Okutama Station.  

I didn't actually go in the cave this time.  This picture is from the day I did go into the cave.  This was in July several years ago.  It was a superhot day, so I almost froze to death.  Seriously, I thought I was going into hypothermia.  I had taken my bicycle the 40-odd kilometers into the mountains to this cave and I was really hot and sweaty when I went in wearing just my shorts and a soaking wet t-shirt.  Being a cave, it was cool.  It felt like I was in a freezer.  

Their site is here: http://www.nippara.com/nippara/syounyuudou/syounyuudou.html

Today, the cave was just my starting point for my hike.  These two boulders in the first pictures are right next to the cave entrance.

The trail starts with the red stairs at the bottom of this picture.  That building is part of a temple/shrine complex the trail passes through.

The trail I chose today is the dotted one I circled on the map below.  Dotted trails are not so well-marked or maintained.  The trail was fairly slow-going but not that difficult to follow.   There's quite a steep ascent for a bit and it gets a bit more gentle as the trail follows a ridge.  I went from the bottom right in the picture to about the place on the map marked with an exclamation point and then turned around.

The second mountain I passed over, 金袋--"kane-bukuro", made me laugh.  It means "sack of gold."  I didn't see any rainbows or leprechauns around, though. 

It was a pleasant day for hiking.  Temps were between -4C~5C.  Not too cold.  

There wasn't much snow and there wasn't much scenery.  This ridge is hidden a bit between two higher ridges so there were precious few long-distance views.  Those ridges seemed to have gathered quite a bit more snow on them than the one I was on.  I didn't need my crampons.

This picture is the only unobstructed view I got all day.

The trail looked cool.  Lots of rocks that reminded me of the Shire.

The good thing about hiking an out-of-the-way trail like this is that there are no other hikers.  The only life forms I saw was a rangale of deer.

This is today's path.  Like I said, it was slow-going.  This took nearly 6 hours to go about 10 km.  Last week I went 48 km just a little over double that time.

As I mentioned above, you can get to this area by bus from the Okutama Station.  There is also trout fishing at several spots in this area.

Where to go next?  According to this app, apparently, I've climbed almost 500 mountains!  Where should I go for #500?

Culture lesson. Our front door

Here's a tidbit of Japanese cultural knowledge to remember.

In Japan, always remember to remove your shoes (and crampons and gaters) before entering the house.  #thisisreallyhowmygenkanis

Coming to Mt. Fuji Day, 2022

 Coming of Age to Fuji Day, 2022

New video!!!

Yesterday was the Coming of Age holiday here in Japan.  Coming of Age Day is to commemorate Japanese people who've reached majority (now 20 years old) in the past year.  Young people return to their hometowns and attend ceremonies.  The girls wear kimonos and the boys wear suits so it is a great day for people-watching.

I'm neither Japanese nor 20 so I decided to celebrate the day off in my own way.  I went to Mt. Fuji.  

My goal wasn't to get to the top--just halfway.  I've climbed to the top from the 5th Station before but have never actually climbed up to that point.  Doing this enabled me to connect the dots as it were of the paths I have trodden.  Completing this task yesterday was the last stretch of un-hiked road between my home and the top of Fuji.  

I left home early and caught the Fujikyu train in Otsuki.  Isn't it cute?

This is the view that greeted me when I alighted at Shimoyoshida Station about an hour later.  I really wish the telephone lines didn't obstruct the view.

First, I walked through the city for a few miles.  This torii (pronounced toe ree) gate has a sign that says "Mt. Fuji".

Getting closer to the trail that will head up the mountain, I passed through the Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine (北口本宮冨士浅間神社).  I took several pictures.

Shortly after passing through that shrine, I stepped onto the Fujiyoshida Yuhodo (富士吉田遊歩道)--the excursion trail.  It was like this for a few miles, rising steadily but not steeply, and not turning much to left or right.

It was about here that I bumped into hikers for the first time.  I met two guys in succession who evidently had summited the mountain.  They were all kitted out with giant packs, pickaxes and the like.  I don't think they were together.

A little later, I came across a group of about ten middle-aged women being led by two male guides.  I don't think they had summited.  I think they probably were just hiking below the 5th Station as I was.

They were the only hikers I saw.  I did see two other guys on the mountain who were driving a tracked snow vehicle but it was a pretty solitary day.

Several miles later, long after the pavement ran out, I hit the first snow around the 2nd Station and donned my crampons.  

This post (二合目) denotes the 2nd Station.  There are 9 stations on Mt. Fuji.  I don't know exactly how they determined where the stations should be but it seems to be according to where rest stops are or were in the past.

Early in the morning, the sky was beautiful.  The main reason I chose that day for Fuji was that the forecast was for clear skies.   

This is a scenic overlook.  Isn't it great?  (grrrr)

Further along the trail, I came to another overlook.  Breathtaking, I'm sure.

Thankfully, the weather wasn't that bad.  I forgot my thermometer that day but imagine the coldest it got was in the mid-20s (Fahrenheit) (-4 or -5 Celsius).

The amount and type of snow were agreeable, too.   For the most part, the snow was hard and crusty.  Only 2 or 3 times did my feet sink below the surface.  Even then, it was only knee-deep.   

The sun made an appearance right around lunchtime and I started snapping away.

One nice thing about hiking in an area with lots of untrodden snow was the plethora of animal tracks.  

Fuji is closed above the 5th Station but I snuck up just a little further to the 6th because there is a mountain on my map near there that I wanted to cross off my bucket list.  When I got there I was disappointed because there is no marker on the ground.  I have no idea how it rates as being a mountain.  It's barely a hill.  It's not even a pimple on the gargantuan protuberance of Fuji.

If you have been up the Yoshida Trail, you should recognize this spot.

This is the 5th Station on the Subaru Line.  During hiking season, people arrive and depart the mountain at a bus stop here.

I had planned on descending on a trail but got a bit worried about time.  I arrived here about 2:15 in the afternoon and was concerned about the possibility of getting lost on a trail after dark.  I was 99% sure I could get back down the trail I'd come.  The trail wasn't hard and I thought the chance of getting lost was slim even in the dark.  What if I slipped and broke a leg?  There is another trail near this spot I considered but didn't want to try something unknown if there was the chance of being caught in the dark.  I decided the most prudent thing would be to follow the bus route down to the bottom.  Doing this would add about 20 km to my hike.  Doing that meant it was sure I wouldn't make down it before the sunset but I felt safer being on a roadway than on a trail.  

This is what the street looked like as I started.

Along the way, the sun came out a few times and I got some nice views.  

That is the street I was walking on.  Depending on how much sun the street got the conditions varied from bare pavement to ice to crusty snow to about a foot of powder.  I am really, really glad there wasn't much snow.  (I wouldn't have made this hike if there was a lot of snow, though.)

As the sun went down I got some great glimpses of the mountaintop.  

Thanks to the half-moon last night I didn't need to wear a headlamp to see the road.  

The woods were really dark, however, and I could not see far into them.  I nearly jumped out of my skin when I first heard an animal I had startled.  It was probably my imagination, but I thought it was a bear.  I also thought it was big.  Maybe it was.  I don't know.  It probably was a bunny rabbit.  Whatever it was, I am glad it ran away from me and not toward me.  

Soon after that, I startled some monkeys.  That made me feel like I had wandered onto the planet of the apes.  

Those experiences creeped me out.

I've never liked or sported bear bells.  I usually listen to something on my iphone if I hike during early morning or twilight to try and warn the bears I'm coming.  After these two experiences last night, I also started to sing, talk and shout as I walked along.

I don't know what time they locked this gate, but I must have still been on the mountain when they did it.  Oops.

About 13 hours after I started, I got to the station.  Hooray!

This was my longest hike ever.  48km.

These videos of the avatar hiking are always 30 seconds long.  This one makes me laugh because the little hiker has to fly along to get from start to finish within the time limit.

That's all for today.  Have a great day.