A meizanologist's diary (113)

10 January: we’re following a snow trench that leads from the car park at Kadohara to the summit of Arashima-dake (1,523m), our prefecture’s only Hyakumeizan peak. So far, there’s no need for snowshoes or crampons on this well-trodden snow. But the icy gusts persuade us feelingly to wear everything we have.

We climb in the shadows until the sun starts to filter through the beeches. Lumps of snow, blown from the branches, explode on their way down so that sheets of spindrift whirl through the trees. It is a fresh morning.

In three seasons of the year, Arashima is a straightforward hike by any of its main routes. Winter is different:

The winter monsoon winds transform Arashima. Northwesterly winds freight the snow up the Kuzuryu River valley towards the Ono Basin, where Arashima blocks them, bringing down torrents of snow. Ice and snow festoon the west-facing walls of Mochigakura, while the avalanches tumble ceaselessly down the Arashima Valley to the east. There our mountain stands, rugged and burnished by the wind and blizzards. Yet within all this ferocity resides a hidden beauty.

These words were written by a certain Mr. Yamaguchi, by way of introducing Arashima in the winter (Arashima no fuyu), a volume published in 1976 that recorded the efforts of Fukui Mountaineering Club members to climb their local Hyakumeizan by as many different routes as possible, most of them in full winter conditions. 

“May we seek out unknown frontiers on our local peak?” Yamaguchi-san asked rhetorically. The trip reports which follow suggest that the club’s members both could and did.

Showa-era climbers approach Arashima by a variation route.
Illustration from Arashima no fuyu.

Our own ambitions are modest. Arriving at the col of Shakunage-daira (no rhododendrons are visible in this season), we take a rest. But not too long: embarrassingly I can’t locate my windjacket, an omission that soon has me shivering with incipient exposure from the windchill. Now the plan is to traverse over to Ko-Arashima, another subpeak.

Nobody has been that way, so we don snowshoes and wade into the deep drifts. Fortunately, the trees blunt the wind’s address below the ridgeline. But perhaps the drifts are not yet deep enough: so much brushwood is still standing above them that we soon find ourselves stymied. I mean, who would think to bring a machete along on a winter climb?

Back on the junction col of Shakunage-daira, we consider our options. Arashima’s main summit is only a paltry few hundred metres away, but the peak is now trailing a banner cloud almost as impressive as the one that Mt Fuji likes to flaunt. The wind up there is monosugoi, confirms a descending climber. With the forecast in mind – it calls for a mo-fubuki (wild blizzard) by evening – we decide to go down.

Now well past noon, and not far from the carpark, we pass a woman toiling her way upwards, solo and bent under a huge pack that obviously contains a full set of winter camping gear. It seems that, half a century after Fukui Mountaineering Club published its Arashima manifesto, at least one bold soul is still seeking out unknown frontiers on this Wild Island of a peak.