Yet all is well. The lifesize effigy is made merely of papier-mâché and it guards the entrance to a local museum. So, unmolested we keep driving towards Gomando-yama.
Gomando: what an evocative name for a mountain! In days gone by, the villagers used to conduct a “goma”, or fire ceremony, to pray for rain or alleviate an epidemic. So a “gomando” must be the hall that they built to house the sacred flame and, perhaps, a statue of the Fudō Myō-ō along with it. Lapsing back into a snooze in the warm car, I conjure up a graceful mountaintop pavilion, perhaps a delicate octagonal structure like Prince Shotoku’s famous Yumedono at the Nara Hōryūji …
Fifteen minutes later, reality catches up. Now on our snowshoes, K-san and I assail a steep wall of fresh powder snow. The slope keeps collapsing, so that we flounder around in an ever-expanding sinkhole.
Then we pick up a pair of old ski-tracks. As the snowshoes sink slightly less profoundly in the pre-compacted snow, we start making progress. Until we reach a knoll where the skiers evidently gave up and turned back. “I’ll take over now,” says the Sensei, “as you obviously don’t have the technique for fresh snow.”
Smarting from this rebuke – but admitting its justness – I slump to the back of the group. Now we’re emerging from the trees onto a snowy whaleback. The sun should have risen by now, but clouds filter its light, if any, so that we seem to be wading through a blue wash. Thanks to a bitter cross-wind, the ridge both looks and feels cold.
Up front, some kind of edifice starts to rise above the skyline. Instead of an octagonal hall of dreams, though, we raise a monstrous steel panel. “A reflector board,” somebody explains, “so that they can watch TV shows in the valley below.”
On the other side of the bare summit, we regroup within a huddle of frozen trees. The plan now is to traverse the connecting ridge from Gomando-yama over to Toritate – from where, with luck, we’ll find a readymade snow trail back down to the road. Toritate might as well be a megaparsec distant: can we really do this, breaking trail all the way?
A short descent brings us back into the trees. Filtered through the clouds, the light is completely flat now – the frozen trees are pallid against a pale blackcloth. Even in the snow at our feet, it’s hard to pick up hollows and ridges until we stumble into them. Wandering blankly through the white-out, from copse to copse of frozen trees, we find our way forwards. Yet, who knows how, we stay on top of our ridge. The route-finding starts to be intriguing ....
Around noon, when some feeble sunlight starts to push through the clouds, we take a break in the lee of a snowbank. Sheltered from the wind, we can take off our gloves and unwrap the day’s rations of onigiri and sweet potatoes. Lunch is overdue. Distracted by this wholesome fare, we hardly notice the two hikers who have arrived on top of our snowbank from the opposite direction.
When we do remember our manners, our greetings are heartfelt. For the issue is no longer in question. There’ll be no more trail-breaking or route-finding: the two snowshoers have paved the way from the top of Toritate, as we have paved the way for them over to Gomando. The clouds are clearing now, except in the direction of Hakusan, who continues to lurk under a wall of orographic clag topped off with a stylish lenticular.
We set off again under a clearing sky. It will be a bright afternoon, with the usual expansive views from the top of Toritate-yama. Our snowshoes move more easily now, especially after we pass another large party coming in the opposite direction. Quite literally, we are out of the woods.
Could it be, though, that we have become addicted to trail-breaking? Something of the morning's mystery and charm seems to be missing when there's an easy track to follow...
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