It was only 8:30 am, and the election trucks were already caterwauling outside. The weather hadn't been any less oppressive, nearly a week of wind and clouds and intermittent rain. You had to feel sorry for those who'd spent big on flying in for the sakura and were getting lousy photos. (But based on how I feel about the current overtourism here, I don't feel that sorry.)
So we'd done well, planning a hike that happened to fall under perfect blue skies. Multiple hikes I should say, as this was technically Plan C. We'd originally planned on a hike in the hills up north, but the rains in town had dumped unseasonal snow up there. So Wes and I had shifted, then Will had reappeared a few days early, turned back by similar weather up in Nagano. We shifted again.
And due to my fumbling through the morning, I almost backed out myself. I'm pretty superstitious about these things, and my comedy of errors since awakening had me worried. I'd once given up on post-work climbing plans back in my Santa Barbara days, after a restaurant shift where I seemed to be constantly spilling or dropping things. The Universe and myself were out of alignment that day, and climbing a cliff face didn't seem the best idea.
So poor Wes and Will were kept waiting 30 minutes. Then we all circled through the backroads of Shiga for awhile, while my car GPS and Google Maps on my phone found it impossible to form a consensus. We finally found the trailhead, past a trio of old-timers walking along a shaded road that followed a stream up a narrow valley.
Despite our climbing a lesser peak not found on most maps, the trail was pretty easy to follow, beginning with a rock crossing over a limpid river that in most countries would house crocs. It was a quick and steep climb along a set of lazy falls to a tableland of sorts, created by one of Japan's earliest dams, built in 1889, using Dutch technology. The dam was a pretty little thing, formed of perfectly symmetrical, hand-hewn stones. A far cry from the concrete addiction later to come.
We followed a broad sand bed through dwarf pines. Their resemblance to juniper brought to mind New Mexico. Wherever we were, it didn't feel like Japan. The landscape continued to baffle as we began to climb again, through a natural forest of low-growth, not often seen in this country. Only the snowdrop asebi and the new budding azaleas reminded us where we were.
We climbed out of the trees and into a sandy ridge punctuated by scrub trees. Pillars of rock rose to form seats with a perfect angle for sitting with the view. After a bit of scrambling down sandy sections that had eroded away any hope of a foothold, we sat awhile atop one isolated rise, trying to identify our surroundings, the higher peaks to the south, the villages and hills out toward the lake.
The final push to the top was up a steep set of rocks, the short lengths of rope here and there adding very little assistance. Devoid of the usual markers, it turned out to be a false peak, the true summit being the next hillock over. A lone hiker was enjoying his lunch there, so deciding to give him his solace, we settled in. It proved a long rest, filled with lunch and stories. The laws of inertia were doing their thing, and this long pleasant rest seemed the only thing we had in mind. Any of our original plots -- to do an extended loop from this peak, followed by another climb a short drive away -- all eroded away. The three of us are notorious for racing through hikes, and this plodding pace felt just right, on the first true day of spring.
There was one order of business, that of Wes ceremoniously passing his new guidebook to me. (Fitting for a peak named after a ceremonial hall.) I'd watched him work through the book's full gestation, and it was nice to finally feel its full weight in my hands. Then it was our own weight that we were carrying, lunch-laden stomachs assisting a little too much during the steep scramble down the face of our lunchspot. It was much easier going up the opposite side to the proper summit, where we took the obligatory photographic "proof" before another rapid descent down the other side. The trail finally leveled out, then took us in the shadow of another dam, which Will dubbed the "vomiting koala."
The next section I would place high on the list of Japan's most beautiful hikes. Though again, it was barely Japan at all. The scenery seemed to shape-shift -- from Borneo, then Australia, then the California Sierra. Another stream fell with a certain lethargy as we passed beneath large ferns and cubelar walls of black stone. It was a wonderous place, somehow out of time, which got Wes and I started on Land of the Lost references.
We once again found the lazy river at the bottom. A trail opposite brought us to the road, and a walk of a kilometer or so back to the car. But we decided to stay with the river, following a faint trail through the sand, then eventually rock hopping as the walls steepened. Wes and I followed the opposite banks, as if a competition to see which course was better. It turned out we were both right, as we zigzagged back and forth over the water further on. We saw no life on the river, save for a lone beachball that had been the life of someone's party the summer before. Amazing that it had survived the winter. And we set it adrift again, watching it follow its own unhurried course toward spring, as if in emulation of our own bucolic passage toward the same.
On the turntable: Brian Eno, "Curiosities Vol. 1"
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