Nasu-dake: Navigating Through Snow and Fatherhood

We visit my wife’s parents at their peach farm in Fukushima once or twice a year, and every time I bring three things: my hiking boots, my guide to Japan’s 100 Most Famous Mountains, and a hollow optimism that this time I’ll get out and do some hiking.

Then we get there and my wife and kids want to do a million things that don’t involve hiking and my boots end up sitting by the front door all week while I spend all my time playing daddy.

It’s just like being at home, except I don’t have to do the dishes.

I did make it out a few years ago, on a day that any normal person would have stayed home. “I think I’m gonna go climb Adatara tomorrow,” I told my wife as the weatherwoman on TV talked politely about the typhoon on the way. My wife was planning on everyone going shopping in the morning, then to lunch at the same ramen shop we always go to (not for nothing, their portions are massive). Her plan, I’m sure, included me. “I’ll take that orange bicycle out there. You going to be okay with the kids?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied, sounding less than excited about the perfect storm brewing. “You don’t want to eat lunch with us at Kuntaro?”

I did. But I didn’t.

Everyone was still sleeping when I slipped out the door and pedaled off into the gray, misty morning, heading for #21 of those Hundred Famous Mountains.

The view from Mt. Minowa, a little north of - and much more enchanting than - Mt. Adatara

I learned two lessons that day. One, I have secret anti-typhoon powers; the skies could not have been much bluer. Two, a discussion needs to be had on what makes a mountain famous. Adatara? Really?

There was something else I got from that day, though; a sort of lesson that I am still learning.

Being a good father doesn’t mean always being present.

Last month I brought my boots and my book to Fukushima again. But in place of the hollow optimism was a burst of forward-thinking inspiration as foreign to me as sex these days.

I normally spend our first evening on the peach farm sitting in the living room, staring in resignation at the calendar on the wall while my kids ignore their grandparents in favor of the TV. This time, with my kids deep into another slapstick variety show, I glanced at that calendar over and over like it was going to try to escape as I interrogated my wife about the next several days.

“When do you want to go to Kuntaro? When are we going to Katsumi’s place?” Katsumi, her hair stylist friend, would give us the bulk family rate if we all got haircuts. I kind of felt compelled. “Does your mother need help with the peach trees? You said you wanted to go put fresh flowers on your grandparents’ grave, right? And what about the dentist?” The dentist was my wife’s cousin. He gave a great deal on teeth-cleaning – and, as with my hair, my teeth were overdue for some attention.

Mixed in were the mandatory trips to the park and the hot spring village and the old-fashioned candy store on the hill. This left Thursday open.

I checked the weather forecast. Whatever kryptonite I possess for typhoons is useless against the rain.

Thursday promised a mix of sun and clouds with little chance of the sky falling. At the same time, this was March in sort-of northern Japan. The mountaintops still wore the white of winter. The weather could be impetuous, even downright impolite.

As my kids argued over the remote, unaware their grandmother had walked in and then out of the room, a voice whispered to me.

Every year people disappear hiking Japan’s still-snowy mountains. Some get lost and succumb to exposure. Others fall right off the mountain, either from a lack of experience or a lack of proper equipment, or both. At minimum one should have those spiky crampon things on their boots, and a map they know how to read.

I don’t have much experience hiking in winter. I don’t have any crampons. I can read a map, more or less. But none of that worried me. All I needed was a bag of cookies and my bear bell. I was sure I’d be good.

“I’m going to go climb Nasu-dake on Thursday,” I told my wife. “As long as the weather’s okay.”

My boots couldn’t believe it when I put them in the car and drove off into the mountains, heading for #24 of Japan’s famous Hyakumeizan.

Promising Conditions. No Equipment.

The road to the Nasu-dake ropeway station was perfectly clear and dry. Only the final quarter-mile, the winding stretch leading up to the main trail head, remained closed off. This seemed a matter of season rather than snow. In Japan, following rules and adhering to schedules is not the best way. It is the only way.

The valley below sat awash in sun, sleepy under the pale blue eastern sky. Even up here at 1,380 meters above sea level the morning air held a hint of warmth. The ropeway was running. Parking was free. Why was this place almost deserted?

It couldn’t have been from social distancing. The coronavirus currently ravaging the globe had not hit Japan very hard, not yet anyway. And from what I’d seen, the people here didn’t seem to be too concerned that it would.

Maybe most people are just smart enough not to go climbing mountains in semi-northern Japan in March.

There were three others there in the lot; men draped with the accouterments of safe winter climbing. A voice came over an unseen PA system, announcing to no one that the ropeway was running. One of the men looked over, probably thinking I'd be taking it while wondering if I understood the announcement.

I laced up my boots, stuffed a couple of extra shirts into my cheapo backpack along with my bag of cookies and two half-liters of watered-down vegetable juice and headed for the trail head.

The mountains looming overhead wore an unsettling mix of snow and rock.

Things looked sketchy at the trail head.

The snowdrifts on the wide stone steps looked both harmless and ominous. Thirty seconds of walking and the ground was completely blanketed in white. Not very deep, I thought. Until I came to this stone torii. Normally tall enough for everyone but Yasutaka Okayama to walk under, this one didn’t leave enough room for Muggsy Bogues, even in his defensive stance. Was there really that much snow?

Yasutaka, Stone Torii, Muggsy Bogues (L to R)

Meanwhile these komainu dogs normally sit on five-foot high pedestals. And though most kinds of broadleaf ‘sasa’ bamboo sit low to the ground, there is at least one variety that reaches two meters or more. Naturally, I didn’t know what kind this one was.

The possibility of sinking through the snow and falling into a crevasse notwithstanding, I told myself I’d made the right choice today and started walking.

I told myself ‘I told you so’ when the trail reappeared. The ground underfoot was now a spring-like mix of dirt, rock, mud and shallow (I assumed) patches of snow. To the right the land fell away. Across the canyon was the steep, craggy southern face of Asahi-dake, one of the peaks of Nasu-dake. As the path curved left with the terrain another peak, Chausu-dake, came into view. Up on the ridge, a half-mile away, was the low rectangular figure of an emergency hut.

Stately Asahi-dake (R) and Surly Ken-ga-mine (L)

800 meters to the ridge. Chausu looks rather unassuming back there. Remember this view.

Emergency hut on the ridge, and a snowy traverse on the face of Ken-ga-mine. (Remember this too.) 

From a distance the ridge appeared largely free of snow (and, presumably, snow-covered crevasses). The sky was eminently, royally blue. I walked easily, excited, hoping my family had done something good with the day so far.

Cresting a mountain ridge will often bring two things: a great unfolding of the view of what lies on the other side, and a sudden blast of wind screaming up from the valley on the other side. In awe of the first, caught off guard with the second, I nearly lost my cap.

I stood looking out over that vast mountainscape, smiling inside and out. This was why I was out here. This was good. This was God.

It’s worth keeping in mind, of course, that God can be wildly unpredictable.

The Point of Today

I come to these places not just for the view, but for the value I sense in the attainment of it. For the physical immersion. For the feeling of having nothing but the air between me and a million square miles of Heaven on Earth. And while it is rather selfish, given the choice I’d have it all to myself.

Today I’d share this heaven with a few other souls. Two women and one man took turns taking pictures of each other, that vastness to the west in the background. I thought they were a group but the man soon walked off on his own, up toward Asahi-dake. I traded smiles and greetings with the women and walked after him.

The rocky peaks of Asahi, draped with sparse, thin tendrils of snow, stood in earthy contrast to that fiercely blue sky. A rugged jewel, the kind of harsh beauty only Nature can create. A place some men would conquer though for me commune with is a better term.

The trail to Asahi ran up the ridge and around the eastern face of 1,799-meter Ken-ga-mine. More a protuberance than a mountain, Ken seemed intent on spiting its taller, more alluring sibling like any little brat would.

While Asahi stood proud and bare, Ken-ga-mine still clung to his thinning winter blanket. As the path rose with the mountain the trail narrowed, winding up and down, tripping over rocks and through stubborn vegetation, slipping and disappearing under that tattered layer of snow.

The man up ahead of me had crampons. He moved gingerly along, testing the snow under each step forward. Tramping along in his wake, I caught up to him pretty quick.

We exchanged greetings. He looked at my boots, noticeably devoid of spiky things. “Sugoi, ne,” he said, impressed by my courageous ability or perhaps my profound stupidity. I smiled and invited him to keep up the good work. I’d be right behind him.

I lied. I let him get ahead of me so (a) he could check the integrity (or not) of what looked from my vantage point like had a massive and fantastically treacherous snow slide, and (b) to take a couple of pictures of him. The sight of him traversing this crooked white monster was striking. Plus if he suddenly went sliding off into oblivion I could show the search party what he looked like.

This would turn out to be just a warm-up.

Magically the two women appeared behind me. They both had crampons. They smiled at my boots. "Sugoi, ne," they said.

Asahi inched closer as we navigated Ken-ga-mine’s bad attitude. On the far side of this white death slide dirt and rocks peeked out from the snow. Small trees, sticking to the general mood of the neighborhood, bristled in defiance of their high-altitude existence. Our steps quickened, our voices lightened as the path leveled out. Asahi came into fuller view as we rounded a bend – and came face to face with a traverse that ensured Ken-ga-mine would never endear himself to anyone.

(Yes, the death trap in that picture up there was just a warm-up.)

Faint tracks showed that people had not only crossed here recently, but had made it to the other side. Clearer tracks ran straight down the mountain, left by rolling clumps of snow that probably got bigger and bigger like they always do in cartoons right before rolling over and swallowing up the coyote or the curious monkey or the hiker with no crampons.

I’d encountered such a scene before – a traverse across a part of Rishiri-zan in Japan’s far north. It was the end of summer, so there was no snow. There was just a ferocious wind roaring over the ridge line above, bringing with it swirling, dirty gray clouds that added an extra element of adventure as they made it impossible to see the rocks and pebbles careening down the mountainside until it was too late.

“Sugoi, ne,” I’d said to myself as another rock flew past my face. I turned around and went back to the sunny side of Rishiri where there was no wind and no killer rocks.

Rishiri-zan's Excellent Adventure

Looking over this latest traverse, pointing out those snowball tracks as if they couldn’t see them, I said something to the three of them about the possibility of a nadare. They nodded and looked longingly at Asahi-dake – and fearfully at the snowed-over side of Ken-ga-mine waiting to eat us. After a minute it was easy to see that only one of us was going any further.

I told them all to have a nice hike and walked off toward my possible death which, in a weird but familiar way, made me feel more immersed, more alive in the middle of all this.

My three friends were still standing in the same place when I got to the other side. The trail, though still covered, had become apparent again as a path of level, packed snow. I gave them a thumbs-up. They didn’t move.

I turned toward Asahi, its coat of dirt and loose rocks now looming overhead.

For Those Not Here

To this point I’d only covered two, maybe three kilometers of the trail; just a fraction of the 15-kilometer loop. Conditions (the snow) and time constraints (getting here late because I decided to take the scenic route) would make hiking the entire trail a challenge. Having only a bag of cookies to get me through was not a concern. Having no crampons, or helmet or rope or experience hiking in the snowy mountains; this floated heavy in my head.

The three main peaks of the loop were all on the eastern arc. Asahi would be the first. Further north, past a few lesser peaks was Sanbon-yari, at 1,917 meters the trail’s highest point. If fate and the snow kept Sanbon out of reach, 1,898-meter Chausu-dake would have to stand as consolation.

And while making it up Sanbon-yari was among the day’s aspirations, and perhaps the foremost goal of the hike, it was not integral to the endeavor. I was not out here to get to a point somewhere outside. I was here to reach a place inside – a place I have neglected countless times in favor of what I believed were my fatherly responsibilities.

I’ve always loved the mountains. But they’ve taken on new meaning for me since I traded my freedom for a family. I still come out here for myself, but by extension I’m out here for my wife and kids too. It’s hard to treat others right if you don’t take care of your own state of mind, no matter how noble your intentions. It’s hard to make others happy when you are not.

My wife understands this as it pertains to me. I wish she would practice it for herself.

Meanwhile my kids are just happy they don’t have to listen to me telling them forty times an hour to stop watching so much TV.

The trail leading toward Asahi’s highest slopes is a winding outdoor museum of rock formations. The pass around the western face is also mostly rock, but with all the ropes and chains – and the possibility of a quick and uncomfortable descent into the valley if you don’t have a good grip on them – it’s not so much a museum as a reminder of your mortality.

The more forgiving rock formations of Asahi

Asahi, at 1,896 meters, is the lowest of the trail’s three main peaks. From the top you can see in every direction. To the east, rivers of flat land run through distinct mountain ranges. Roads and houses and fields lie blurry in the distant haze. Opposite all this is a vast panorama of slopes and peaks and sky. To the south Chausu is easy to recognize, for its shape but moreso because it’s right there in front of you. Face the innumerable mountains to the west and you feel like you are looking out over an immense and restless ocean, eternally frozen in time.

Looking southwest from the top of Asahi-dake

To the north lay the trail and, somewhere among the hills and mountains beyond, Sanbon-yari. I studied my map. I looked out over the land. I had no idea where Sanbon was. So much for my map-reading skills. At least I wasn’t lost. Yet.

Sanbon-yari: out there somewhere

Looking back at Asahi (L) and Chausu (R) - both of them much different in appearance now

This Ever-Changing View

Among the intangible treasures I find out here is the sense of distance and spatial relation. On a map you see where things are. On a mountain you are a part of the immensity of the land. Down in the valley places that seem so close on the map can take forever to get to in a car. On a mountain those same places can seem close enough to touch. Moving through the terrain you can watch points in space become nearer or farther, watch mountains appear and disappear behind other peaks. The slow assault on the senses is magical.

As is a mountain’s seeming ability to make itself invisible.

On my map Sanbon-yari looked well within reach. If distance were the only factor I could run there and back without giving it a thought. But the land to the north was covered in snow. And while it was obvious which direction Sanbon-yari was, I couldn’t figure out which of the peaks, if any of them, was the one. It might be that lazy round mound over there. It might be that steeper, rougher climb hiding behind. It might even be that massive snow-covered banana slug of a mountain further over to the west. If so, forget it. But nah, that couldn’t be Sanbon-yari. Could it?

My first instinct was to just start running. My boots might start wondering what the hell was going on but for me, running heightens the senses. Running changes the dynamic, putting me more in touch with a place. I don’t know how to describe it. I can’t even explain it to myself. I only know that running, even if only for a moment, brings me closer to what I come out here for.

Back down below Asahi’s rocky summit I did start running. Along the ridge leading north, past the marker pointing back toward the obstacle course and up to Kumami-sone Bungi there was barely any snow. 

熊見曾根 - "Kumami-sone" - basically means 'bear-sighting part of the trail'. Luckily I had my bear bell with me.

Down a little, up a little, I jogged and ran and walked and jogged again. Sliding down a snowy slope that was both fun and clearly potentially ruinous, I came to a place called Shimizu-daira, which probably becomes a beautiful marshy plateau in summer. Today it was all white, broken up only by the low-lying green and brown scrub.

According to my map it was just 35 minutes from this point to the top of Sanbon-yari. The lay of the land looked different from here than it had from the top of Asahi, but I still didn’t know where Sanbon-yari was. If it wasn’t that big round hill in front of me then it was behind it. Somewhere. Either way I’d have to climb that hill. And from my vantage point the snow covering that big bump in the earth looked deep enough in places to swallow me whole.

Best guess, Sanbon-yari was off to the right, past that snowy ridge.

The trek out to this point had only taken 2.5 hours, including the side trip up Asahi. Hiking out to Sanbon-yari and back would be an hour in dry conditions, maybe a half hour more with the snow. Getting back to this spot around 2:00 would put me back at the parking lot by 3:30 at best. But that meant skipping the climb up Chausu, which would require an extra hour as far as I could tell. Accounting for a degree of fatigue thanks to my poor planning in the food department I could be looking at 5:00. And while it would still be light, the land would be turning shadowy.

Or worse.

The skies to the north and west were clear and blue. My hike to Sanbon-yari would likely be spectacular – at least until I fell into a crevasse. But the skies to the south were thick and gray, like a storm was moving in.

Ten years ago I would have continued on toward Sanbon-yari, at least until I was waist deep in the snow. Twenty years ago the entire Japanese rugby team wouldn’t have been able to hold me back. Today, Sanbon-yari would remain a distant acquaintance. I still wasn’t sure what she looked like, but she no longer felt like a stranger.

Next time, I said to myself. And that was all right. I hadn’t seen Sanbon-yari, but I had once again seen God. Time to go home and see my family.

Dang my fatherly instincts.

Suddenly sketchy skies over Kumami-sone, Asahi and Chausu.

Turning to Chausu

While hiking a loop constantly puts you in contact with new terrain and new vantage points, backtracking can show you new ways of seeing familiar things. You look at things from new angles. You see things you missed. The skies may have cleared, or turned a different blue, remaking the entire experience.

Backtracking also increases (theoretically) your chances of meeting people out on the trail. For the most part I do prefer solitude out here, but the occasional meeting can add a welcome extra element to a hike – particularly if it’s at the traverse that looks about ready to turn into an avalanche.

He was on the other side, standing at the edge like he was debating whether to go for it or turn back. I crossed first. Only twice did I lose my footing, and only one of those times did I get that feeling of your chair about to fall backwards.

Safe on the other side I exchanged greetings with the man. He had crampons on his boots, poles in his hands, a helmet on his head and a seriousness in his face. I said something about the conditions on the traverse, though what I don’t quite remember. The guy headed off across the snow without a word. Not even a quick ‘Sugoi, ne.’

The Traverse. Doesn't look so bad now..

An hour later, near the top of Chausu-dake, I ran into my three friends. They said they saw me standing at the top of Asahi. They asked me how far I’d gone. I wanted to tell them the traverse wasn’t that bad – not bad at all – and that the hike on the other side was breath-taking. But such one-sided exuberance doesn’t go well with typical Japanese conversation so I told them the views were nice but the trail was slippery in places so it might have been a bit risky. This made little to no sense to them, coming from a guy with no crampons, but they smiled and nodded and asked to take a couple of pictures together.

Chausu is an extinct (I remember hoping) volcano. A trail runs over the rocks and around the entire crater, layered at the bottom with snow. From the western edge one is presented with another wide, uninterrupted vista of that choppy mountain landscape. The long range of peaks in the distance looked the same, but the mountains closer in – the ones that look so deliciously within reach, sat differently once again in relation to each other. And from here I thought I might have seen Sanbon-yari.

Chausu, like so many mountains in Japan, is topped with a small Shinto shrine. The one on Chausu looks brand new. Meanwhile the wooden torii nearby looked so makeshift and worn I thought I might have built it.

With the ropeway running, the top of Chausu was lightly populated. Including my three friends, who were now on their way back down toward the emergency hut, I counted about a dozen people besides myself. Ten people at best on this big huge rocky summit – and one of them manages to walk up to that mini shrine right when I'm about to snap a picture of it through the wooden frame of the torii.

Normally this would be a non-event. Normally, a person would walk up to a shrine to look at it for a minute, maybe snap a photo, or toss a couple of coins on the front porch and say a quick prayer. No problem. We all want to look at things. Some of us like to pray. This person, however, walked up to this shrine and stood right there in front of it for the apparent purpose of eating a rice ball.

She wasn’t even looking at the shrine. She might not have realized it was there.

Photobomber finally finished her rice ball and left.

Ah well. It was only two o’clock. I’d made better time than I expected, retracing my steps and making the hike up here. And those sketchy gray clouds looming thick and wet over this mountain when I was back at Shimizu-daira contemplating the hike to Sanbon-yari? Gone without a trace. Nothing overhead but the sun and a royal blue sky.

If only those clouds could have disappeared two hours ago. I might have met Sanbon-yari.

I caught up with my three friends on the way back down Chausu. ‘Nice weather, isn’t it?’ I said as I bounced alongside one of the women.

‘Oh, hello! You’re fast! Great, we can take our time and all walk down together!’

‘We could, couldn’t we,’ I replied, jumping over a few boulders and clomping down the trail, leaving them all behind.

The view heading back down Chausu-dake

Not that I was in a rush. I had plenty of time and daylight left. And really, I could have hung around and looked out on those mountains until the sky over Nasu grew dark. But I had two other, more important things on my mind.

One, I had a family to see.

And two, I was out of cookies.