A meizanologist's diary (105)

31 March: for the third time this year, we drive past the papier-mâché dinosaur towards Toritate-yama. For a mountain of just 1,308 metres, just an hour or so from home, the spaciousness of its summit views is hard to beat.

Couples don’t have to agree about everything. When we leave the carpark at the leisurely hour of 9.30 am, the Sensei is wearing crampons while I am doing without, expecting that the snow will soon turn gloppy, as on Daisen a few days ago.

Since our last visit, the pits around each beech tree have deepened and widened, like the gravity wells around a growing black hole. We steer clear of them. As for the crampons, we are both right – the Sensei’s drive firmly into the underlying hard snow, but my cramponless soles feel equally secure in the previous days' light dusting of powder. Even after an hour, the snow shows no sign of gloppiness: the powder must be insulating the rest of the snowpack…

The summer carpark is still a metre deep in snow. We refresh ourselves there with coffee and “monaka”, a kind of anpan with a crispy coating. Then we address the steep ridge up to the summit. It’s noon by the time Hakusan heaves into view above Toritate’s snowdome.

The cool northerly breeze may explain why the snow is still crisp underfoot. And it certainly accounts for the miniature cornice that runs along a nearby snow-berm, as if extruded from the icing syringe of a master pâtissier. 

But what has the wind to do, if anything, with the dingy tone of our local Meizan? Somehow, Hakusan is looking browner than the pristine snows under our own feet. Then we get it – up on the higher mountain, the northerly gale has scoured away all the new powder. This leaves only the old snowpack, stained brown from all the dust that has blown in from the continent in the past few weeks.

We continue up to the subpeak of Itadani-no-kashira, from which we take in the liberal views back along the ridge towards Gomando and eastwards to Hakusan. 

By the time we are back at Toritate, our top-of-descent, the snow has turned slushy under a crisp film of ice – this too we call “monaka” says the Sensei – and we are entirely alone: everyone else went home hours ago.

On our way down, we meet a solitary buzzard working its way up the slope. In easy circles, the bird lifts away until we lose sight of it somewhere among the building clouds.