A meizanologist's diary (82)

11 November: looking for a short excursion on the way home, we settle on Echizen Kabuto (1,319.6m), near the famous dinosaur museum at Katsuyama. This too is a bit of a cheat: until the snow comes, you can drive up to a pass on the Fukui/Kanazawa prefectural border, shrinking the number of vertical metres between the car and the summit of this helmet-shaped mountain.

And, for now, the snow shows no signs of coming. The world has already heard that, when the first snows of autumn fell on Mt Fuji just five days ago, this was the latest such snowfall since records began 130 years ago. A few days later, NHK also announced the first snow on Hakusan, but only a dustbin-sized telephoto lens or the eye of faith could detect any sign of it today, at least on this western side of our supposedly white mountain. It must have melted almost as soon as it touched the ground.

As for Echizen Kabuto, we set off up a steep slope and run straight into a patch of cognitive dissonance. The slanting light and the yellowing leaves say autumn, but our sweaty shirts, not to mention the flies hovering in the clearings, are more like late summer. Only a few years ago, we climbed this mountain on snowshoes in April; now we push our way through tunnels of tropical green.

By the time we emerge from the beech trees on the summit ridge, fair-weather cumulus clouds are drifting overhead. We find places to sit and start munching our Seven-Eleven fare. There’s no need to pull any more clothing out of our packs: we’re quite warm enough as it is.