Tateyama

The last big adventure of our friends' visit was heading out to the Japanese North Alps to hike up one of Japan's Three Holy Peaks, Tateyama.  Our friends had asked us to find them some Japanese nature and as Ana and I have previously climbed the other two Holy Peaks, this one completed the set for us.  Tateyama is an all-day affair from Kanazawa, mostly because to get there, and I'm not kidding, we had to take a bus to a train to a train to a cable car to a bus, before actually walking the last ninety minutes of the mountain proper.  It took about five hours to get there, though I'm pretty sure it would have been less than two hours by car, if we had one.  Anyhow, given the five-hour-each-way-transit we started out bright and early.

 After taking a bus to a train, we had some time in the station before the second train left.  We went to a "German Bakery" and bought some snacks, including these little produced-on-premises deep-fried apple pies, which were as tasty as one would expect.

 The second train was on a private (non-Japan Rail) line, and we had a whole car (half the train) to ourselves.

 The cable car went up some very steep slopes and the seats were extremely small.

 After the cable car, there was a bus ride of most of an hour through some forest and then across alpine meadows, which were quite colorful when not being blocked by clouds.

 We managed to get a few pretty decent pictures from the bus.

 There is an enormous lodge / hotel at the end of the bus route.  Several other hotels and hot springs seemed to be in the area / served by the bus up here.  Tateyama is either part of an old supervolcano caldera, or near one, the map didn't seem quite clear to me.  At any rate, sulfurous fumes and hot springs issue forth nearby, making the whole area aromatic.  It confused the heck out of us until we figured out what the smell was.  We got some steamed buns at the lodge for lunch before heading out.

  Adventuring hats: check.

 The base of the trail heading up.  With the sun out it was pretty warm.

There are two huts on the mountain in the direction that we were climbing it from.  One is at the top, and the other is about halfway up, where the trail changes from "Pleasant Walk" to "They Obviously Don't Have to Worry About Liability in this Country".  Ana and my roommate, examining the vertical nature and broken terrain of the trail ahead, opted to stay at the halfway hut rather than potentially injure knees and cause us serious problems with getting to the last bus on time.  My roomate's wife was giddy with enthusiasm to reach the top and I hadn't ridden on public transportation for five hours to engage in half-measures, so we continued upwards.

The ascent was one of the more frightening things I've done of late, but ultimately successful.

 Large portions of the trail are steep fields of broken rocks and loose dirt.  Normally, that wouldn't be a problem for me, but when I start getting up really high and the slope is so steep that when I look over my shoulder and see empty space, I must admit that I start taking a deep interest in proper handholds and reliable footing.

 The view got steadily more spectacular as we went up.

 Meanwhile, she's unconcerned.

 Somewhere along the trail, we're pretty sure that we actually missed a turn.  That would explain the exceptionally steep and rocky parts without any guide arrows.  We picked it up later on.  Previous to diverging from the trail, there had been several instances where two options presented themselves and met up further on - I'm pretty sure we took an option that wasn't actually supposed to be an option, leading to pictures like the one above.  Consider - if it is that steep above, how steep might it be below?

 Tenaciously clinging to rockfaces until we rejoined the trail, we achieved the top, adorned by a hut and a shrine.

 Picture by a guy passing by who managed to cut the shrine right out of it.

 The peak of Tateyama is definitely above the clouds.

 Not the view from an airliner, but rather standing on a rock at the peak.

Going down we actually used the trail, which was positively soothing by comparison.  We met up with the rest of our party and headed back down toward the lodge and the bus to a train to a train to a bus that would return us home. 

After the several hours it took to make it back to Kanazawa, we needed some dinner.  Normally, I might put dinner in the same post, but we've mentioned okonomiyaki a lot in this blog but never properly documented it, so I'm giving it a separate entry.  We have a lot of pictures this time and some hysterical videos, so tune in next time for those in the final entry in this series. Until then, there is a large set of really awesome pictures of the mountains on Flickr, be sure to check them out!