Alas, the snow has long since melted off a new sign enforcing one-way traffic on the ‘up’ and ‘down’ paths – an unwelcome byproduct of Arashima’s status as a Hyakumeizan peak. Excessive signage is a bête noire of Alex Kerr in his recent book on Hidden Japan, which I’ve just been reading:
Despite being known as the land of aesthetics, the physical environment of Japan could better be called the land of junk. It’s overwhelming, all enveloping. Tourists, Japan and foreign, simply don’t see it because they’re so focused on finding what’s beautiful. That’s a credit to their love of Japan. But the junk is there nonetheless.
We are soon distracted by an elegant slime mould growing on the path – I hope it will have the sense to complete its reproductive cycle before the Hyakumeizan-bagging hordes trample it flat later in the season. Or perhaps it’s lying in wait for them.
Now we’re climbing into the beechwoods. And that is an impressive burl on one of the trees – common enough in old forests, so Google says. It looks like the obi on a well-fitted kimono....
We meet a first snowdrift on Mochi-ga-kabe, the step that leads up to the summit ridge, but don’t deem it worthy of our crampons. That’s as well, because there’s still a hundred metres of dry, bouldery path to negotiate above it.
Nevertheless, we meet a mountain photographer coming down who seems to prefer crunching over the rocks in his new-looking climbing irons. Dry tooling is all the rage now, they say.
A steep ramp, which we tackle with crampons, leads us to the summit ridge, with aery views over to Hakusan. Even if we couldn’t identify our famous local ‘white mountain’, we would be sorted by the computer-generated panorama table that awaits us on the summit.
No need to invoke Alex Kerr for a rant here: the Hyakumeizan author expressed his views on such fixtures decades ago:
You never saw such things in the old days and, speaking for myself, I prefer my summits unencumbered with them. (Senjо̄-dake, One Hundred Mountains of Japan)
But the junk is there nonetheless.
Back in the spring woods, we are coming down the path as fast as our ageing knees will allow when we hear an odd clapping or guttural sound. I take it to be a large bird, pre-flighting its wings. Or, the Sensei says, it might be the discreet cough that a polite bear utters to remind visitors of his presence.
Birds or bears? A true Meizan is an inexhaustible font of mountain mysteries.
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