A meizanologist's diary (99)

18 March: even by our (S)low Mountaineering standards, an ascent of Fujikura (643 metres) sounds unambitious. And surely we won’t need the wakan – after all the snow has all but melted in the streets of Imajō, where we park the car. But I defer to the Sensei, and stuff a pair of the traditional snowshoes in my pack anyway.

This time we’ll go anticlockwise, she says, to make the route-finding easier. Route-finding, I think to myself: how can we get lost, in perfect weather, on a mere hummock? 

And, indeed, the start is easy enough to find: a statue of Kōbō Daishi stands below a flight of stone steps that leads up onto a sunny ridge. No need for the wakan here, although I note that this North Country Daishi appears to be wearing a pair of gaiters.

A Jizō figurine guards every turn of the path, every one protected in its niche against the snow by a bamboo screen. Each makes sure you are safe on your journey until the next one takes over, explains the Sensei – a bit like one air traffic controller handing your flight on to the next, I think irreverently.

The temple of Kōbōji sits on a sunny hummock overlooking the town. We sit and munch our biscuits – an interesting update on traditional yomogi sweetmeats - under the eaves of the main hall, which is still shuttered up for the winter season. 

From here onwards, we’re walking over spring snow. On the ridge linking the temple’s knoll to the mountain of Nabekura, we find a large pawprint. A bear? Or more probably, the Sensei thinks, a rabbit’s track that has broadened as it melted. 

At least in this season we’re not going to meet the vipers that haunt this sunny ridge in summer – the Sensei once met with one peacefully sunbathing on a twig, at eye level.

On Nabekura, we have to kick our way up a steep snowbank. As the sun hasn’t yet reached this slope, there’s almost a north face ambience to it. While pausing for breath, we notice that Hakusan has risen into prominence above the intervening ridges. Under the bare trees, yellow flowers dancing in the breeze herald the arrival of spring.

Or so we think, as we cross from the intermediate peak of Nabekura over to Fujikura. Suddenly we’re sinking deep into the snow at every step, and it’s time to bind on those wakan. I have to say that I’m a wakan neophyte. Back in my Tokyo days, we didn't hold with them – it was either skis for us on the rounded mountains of the Jōetsu or crampons on the colder, shallower snows of Yatsugatake. 

But that was then and this is now. I soon discover that, unlike modern snowshoes, wakan lend themselves quite well to kicking steps up steep snow. We aim ourselves upwards through the beech trees for the ridgeline, wending our way round crevasses that are opening up as the snowpack starts to creep downhill.

Back in the sunlight on the broad ridgetop, we sit down on a fallen branch and wash our onigiri down with instant coffee. By the time we have finished lunch, the snow has started to soften. Sinking a bit deeper into it, we crunch our way through the quiet hallways of beech to the summit. As on Gomando-yama, this one enshrines a large steel reflector board, so that the citizens of Imajō can view their TV soaps.

From the summit, I set off boldly down a broad open slope. I’m beginning to get the idea of wakan. Back in January, with its soft, powdery snow, modern MSR-type snowshoes were a necessity. But on the firmer snows of spring, wakan work better – particularly in dealing with the type of steep, dense terrain we are now …

A yell from above interrupts my disquisition. Seeing no tracks to follow, the Sensei has wisely consulted her GPS, which tells her that my broad open slope will lead us to perdition. A hasty course correction to the left is made. On this sunward slope, the brushwood is starting to emerge from the snowpack – as I was saying, the wakan deal with the occasional tangle of greenery better than big plastic snowshoes would.

Fujikura has yet another lesson to teach us. Wakanning our way too easily down the snowy ridge, we make the classic mistake of missing our turn-off point and have to climb back a few metres to retrieve ourselves. Only GPS will work here – there are no tracks, and no scraps of red tape on tree branches to show the way. It’s as if such aids for the improvident are disdained on this mountain. 

A little later than expected, we step up onto the knoll where Hiuchi Castle once stood. This Atago-yama has a commanding view down onto Imajō, and no doubt an excellent field of fire too. Back in shadow, we come down into the Inari Shrine, still boarded up for the winter and half-buried in a snowbank. Meltwater cascades down the stone steps as we work our way gingerly down them back into town.

The streets of Imajō are all but deserted on this Tuesday afternoon. Walking back to the car, we get the impression that nothing much has ever happened in this town, hovering as it does in the liminal zone between the prefecture’s “northern march” and its southern one. But it was right here, in 1865, that the feudal authorities put down the rebellion of the Mito loyalists, later executing 353 of the eight hundred or so captives and salting down the leaders' heads in wooden tubs. 

One really shouldn't judge a town and its history by its outward appearance. Or a mountain by its height.