It's nothing special, how I approach each birthday as a father. I just tell my kids (whether they ask me or not) I'd like to do something fun, and encourage them to throw their ideas at me; where to go, what to do, and where and what to eat. It's fun to hear what they say.
I smile at their enthusiasm and bite my tongue when they argue, and ultimately go along with whatever they decide - which is never what I silently hope for.
What the lone wolf in me wants is a huge home-cooked breakfast without having to cook or clean or listen to the kids go to battle over who gets which pancake when the first batch hits the table. He wants to take off on his own, cycling or hiking or both, at his own pace and discretion, with no debating where to stop for ice-cream. He'd get home just as the sun was dipping behind the mountains, and take a long hot shower and sit down to a burger and a beer without having to wash the dishes or listen to the kids argue over who gets to use the ketchup first.
Lone Wolf is going to have to try again next year.
At least I'm getting a mountain.
My birthday fell on a Sunday this year. In a former life this would have been good news. Now it means the kids are home all day. Par for this antipodal life I've fallen into, weekdays are the bearers of what freedom remains.
I was washing the breakfast dishes when my wife decided, after weeks of vacillating, that today would be the day we would head for the highlands of Mount Norikura. The blazing mountain foliage that had originally lit my wife's fire had faded but no matter, we should drive up to Tatamidaira, a narrow valley among Norikura's many peaks; a swath of alpine gentility whose sea of summer wildflowers had long since dried up.
Weather and Stomach Conditions
The clouds hung low and thick over town but we threw the kids in the car anyway because the forecast for the top of the mountain showed promise. Rain spattered the windshield on and off as we rolled through the farmland on the far side of town. “Looks bad,” said my wife. “Blue skies up top,” I replied.
I say stuff like that a lot, though I rarely believe myself.
Our van groaned up Route 158, through a valley of twists and turns. The misty fog turned to soup. “Looks bad,” my wife remarked. “Blue skies at the top,” I answered.
By now my daughter was puking up her breakfast. Nothing new for these winding mountain roads. We've learned to keep a stash of plastic bags in the glove box.
Suddenly the world lightened, as if someone had opened a curtain. Patches of baby blue peeked through the swirling gray shroud overhead. Through another bend and suddenly the sun was reflecting off the wet road and the trees and the papers scattered on the dash. At around 2500 meters we left the clouds behind for good.
Things Japan Does With a Mountain
Technically, Tatamidaira is the name of that sometimes-flowering valley. Most people, however, use it to refer to the sprawling parking lot and bus stop/rest area/restaurant/info center/gift shop complex that, while convenient I guess, looks terribly out of place. Cars aren’t even allowed up here, presumably because the allure of wildflowers and souvenirs and Japan's easiest high-altitude hike brought in the hordes and the place became overrun. Now people have to park 20 kilometers downhill and take a thirty-dollar shuttle bus back and forth.Unless someone in
your family is physically challenged, in which case you go to the police
station and get a permit for your vehicle and drive right up.
I threw open the driver’s side door and jumped out, my family gasping in unison behind me at the sudden blast of arctic-grade wind freezing their eyeballs. This was the part where I expected everyone to tell me that sure, I could go for a hike if I wanted, they’d happily wait right there in the car.
My oldest jumped out and zipped up his coat. “I’m ready,” he said, that inextinguishable spirit of his warming the air between us.
“Cool,” I said, biting my tongue as I looked over his thin black warm-ups. If my fourteen-year-old son doesn’t know by now to bundle up when an arctic wind is blowing he needs to learn the hard way.
I thought my daughter had puked again the way my second son came springing out the side door. That morning at home he’d put on a passive display of not wanting to come up here at all. He doesn’t talk a lot. Not in English anyway. He’s made it clear over the past few months that he’d rather not bother. Japanese has become his natural language. Speaking English takes too much effort. And does daddy really care how school was today? Just let me play Fortnite in peace.
But here he was now, pulling on his gloves and tightening his hood around his ears. These moments when things just fall into place can make all the rest seem trivial.
Norikura is listed as one of Japan’s “Hyakumeizan” – a term normally translated as Japan’s One Hundred Famous Mountains. I’d propose this be changed to Japan’s One Hundred Notable Mountains, a more conceptually accurate expression for the non-speaker of Japanese though I'd have no more luck trying to get people to stop saying “Let’s go to carry-oh-kee.” (It’s ‘kah-rah-oh-keh’ dammit!)
The straightest route is the trail that first leads down a long set of stairs, to the wooden walkway that loops around the real Tatamidaira, a hundred meters below the fake one. These stairs are the only way to get down to Tatamidaira. They begin right next to the handicapped parking spaces. I have no idea if the Japanese see the irony in this.
The map-makers write that the hike from the parking lot to the top of Ken-ga-mine, Norikura’s highest peak, should take 90 minutes. Such estimates seem geared toward the retirees who make up the vast majority of Japan’s hiking population.
Up and Down a Volcano
The first half of the hike, which is much more a walk, goes down those stairs, up a smooth gravely path, along an access road that runs between Fujimi-dake (“Mountain from where Mt. Fuji can be seen”) and Marishiten-dake, atop which sits a Natural Sciences Research Center and Observatory, and up to the Katanokoya Hut where you can, during peak climbing season, pay 85 bucks for two meals and a 3’ x 6’ spot on the floor among 200 other people who get the same.
The second half of the hike is all rocks and rough earth and solidified lava from when Ken-ga-mine blew its top 9,000 years ago. Norikura is classified as a potentially active volcano, with the last eruption, around 50BC, creating nearby Ebisu-dake.
However it was just seven years ago when Ontake-san, 20 miles to the south, erupted right at lunchtime. And the Yugawa River, running down Norikura’s eastern slopes, smells nicely of volcanic gas.
My boys huddled against the south wall of the unsightly shrine atop Ken-ga-mine, sheltered from the wind that almost blew me off the mountain as I angled for a decent picture of the weather-beaten torii gate with the summit of Ontake rising above the clouds in the distance.
I lagged behind them on the way down, letting them enjoy the rest of the hike talking with each other about whatever it is my boys might talk about amidst the cold beauty of the clouds and mountaintops and crater lakes all around. Probably Fortnite.
Back in the desolate parking lot my daughter was sitting alone in the van. “Where’s mom?” I asked. She looked around with empty eyes, at the hilltops and buildings and pavement outside. Barely turning back to me she shrugged and resumed playing with the plastic candy wrapper in her hands.
I called my wife, but there was no answer. Either there's no reception at 2700 meters or she’s fallen off the mountain.
A minute later she calls and says she’s on top of Mao-dake, the minor mountain right next to the parking lot. This was convenient as I was already on my way up Mao, not because I thought that’s where my wife was, but because if she really had fallen off the mountain maybe I’d be able to see her from up there. Plus the view might be really cool.
I took in the view alone, as my wife had decided to leave me in favor of the van.
At the End of the Day
The parking lot was sitting in shadows when we drove off. Down the winding road my daughter puked again, somehow missing the bag in her hands and ending any talk of stopping for ramen on the way home.
My older son was sitting next to her. He was calm as a spring breeze as he tried to help keep the situation from going from bad to worse. Mom and Dad were less patient.
Sushi for dinner – with one can of beer for Dad – and there I was doing the dishes as everyone else fell into TV and video games and homework. It was already coming up on nine o’clock. The cake we’d picked up, it seemed, would sit in the fridge till tomorrow.
My older son was alone upstairs. I thought he was watching TV in my room. But just as I was finishing up at the kitchen sink, ready to head for more fun in the laundry room, he came down and handed me a folded piece of paper.
“I wrote you a letter,” he says with a mix of humility and pride as he hands it to me. “Sorry we couldn’t find a good present for you.”
I took his letter and, without reading it, put it on the counter.
Norikura was great. Having my boys hike with me made it more than a potentially active volcano could ever be on its own. This now – this simple gesture of thought, time and effort – made my day complete.
“Thank you,” I said, pulling him in for a long bear hug. “You just gave me what I want most.”
Which, I sometimes forget, is true. Yeah, I would have loved to cycle off for a day alone in the mountains. Go where I want at my own pace. Stop for ramen – or a burger, should I find one – without anyone tossing their cookies all over my ideas. Crack a second beer while the dishes and laundry magically disappear without me.
My son walked into the TV room, leaving me alone with his letter. And a welling in my chest that rose up, flooding my eyes.
Yeah. This is what I want most.
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