A meizanologist's diary (139)

17 August: You can run, you may drive, but you can’t hide - from the summer heat, that is. At 6am in the Ichinose car park, at 830 metres above sea level, the air feels cool as we pull on our mountain boots. But the humidity has us sweating as soon as we start towards Chiburi-one, the ridge route up to Bessan, Hakusan’s “separate mountain”.

According to a book on Japan’s hundred most famous forests, here is as rich and varied a panoply of trees as you will see anywhere in the realm. Yet the lower woods are dark under their summer foliage and, besides, the hornets droning by dissuade us from hanging about. The Sensei says to ignore them. I do my best. Must admit, I find them even scarier than the b-word....

With relief, we leave the giant horse-chestnuts, oaks and katsura behind – it is probably safer to appreciate them at greater leisure later in the year – and we climb gradually into the clerestory of the beechwoods.

The sun has risen over the ridge, backlighting swarms of miniature dragonflies as they weave to and fro. A gap in the trees show us that the clouds have already started to drift up and around Hakusan. 

Perched on grass stems in front of us are three dragonflies, large enough to have flown straight out of the Carboniferous. They seem to be admiring the view too.

Coming up to the refuge hut at 1,900 metres, the path weaves its way through thickets of ōshirabiso trees (Abies mariesii), many surmounted with fresh clusters of blue cones. A fragrance wafts from the trees, reminding me of early morning starts in midsummer at Kamikochi. 

We take a break in the hut’s shade, not forgetting to admire the first alpine flowers of the day, a scattering of matsumushi-sō (Scabiosa japonica).

Bessan, at 2,399 metres, is just high enough to be crowned with creeping pine, with its bright green cones. Lunch, taken in the shadow of the summit shrine’s retaining wall, consists of onigiri from an all-night Lawson outlet. 

Thus fortified, we start out on the ridge traverse towards Hakusan. The path soon takes us through a meadow of Hakusan bofu. This giant parsley-like plant seems to be favoured by an insect that looks like a wasp but probably isn’t.

Further on, the Sensei points out a colony of Hakusan kozakura – which would have turned the slope into a shimmering sheet of purple earlier in the summer, although the flowers are now over.

This sets me wondering how many flowers have “Hakusan” in their name. It turns out that the answer might be more than twenty (depending on whom you ask), thus leaving the runner-up, Rishiri – about eighteen – some way behind. Ibuki lags in third place with a mere dozen. I think of making this observation to the Sensei, but she would probably find it otiose. The San-Reizan (Three Sacred Mountains), of which Hakusan is one, do not stoop to vulgar comparisons. They simply preside over the rest…

Bessan, the savants say, really is a separate mountain – unlike Hakusan’s volcanic crown, it is made up of sedimentary rocks. At the midpoint of the ridge, these seem to be crumbling into the depths, taking stretches of the old path with them. We pay a bit more attention to our footwork here, rewarding ourselves later with a break beside a mountain tarn where the ridge widens again.

Before long, the Nanryū Hut comes into view, sitting on its plateau just beyond the gully dividing Hakusan from the junction ridge to Bessan. 

Altogether, says the Sensei’s navigation app, we’ve climbed 1,782 vertical metres today – which is quite enough for folk of our vintage. With an hour or so to while away before supper, there is time to sample the hut’s excellent library of Hakusan-related literature.

The books on offer come up with one surprise. I’d thought that Hakusan had been dormant since its last eruption in the second year of Manji (1659), but this is to reckon without the “anomaly” (ihen) of Shōwa 10. In March 1935, tall pillars of steam started jetting from a point about two kilometres from the summit. Earth tremors were felt in a village at the mountain’s foot.

Report on the 1935 Hakusan "anomaly" in the Hokkoku Shimbun.

Some feared that the disturbance heralded another major eruption but a local geologist thought otherwise. The fumaroles were more likely caused by recent torrential rainfall, bringing groundwater into contact with hot rocks. And the mountain consented to agree with him. Since then Hakusan has settled back into its habitual somnolence, except for the occasional seismic murmuring.

We are summoned to dinner by a public announcement over the hut’s loudspeakers. 

Looking out from our table over the peaceful verdure of the Nanryū plateau, one would never suspect that this mountain could blast steam jets a hundred metres up into the winter sky. Well, there are more things in this Meizan than are dreamt of in our philosophy. How will it surprise us next…?