Hongudō revisited...revisited

 

I've mentioned before how my friend Daniel and I had missed a great deal of the Hongudō during our walk in 2019, due to most signage been oriented from Ise-ji, against our flow. I returned later that summer to follow a pass over the lower reaches, though this time in the direction of the signs.  But those upper reaches continued to haunt.     

Armed this time with better maps, I greet my unwashed taxi driver, who picks me up in the dark of pre-dawn, and drops me just above the Sanwanotsuri Bridge an hour later.  As I climb from the vehicle, the driver tells me to take care.  Even in the modern age, townspeople maintain their superstitions about the mountains.  Not to say they're wrong.  

I tip the driver a thousand yen, since the poor guy had to rise so early to get me, and on a Sunday no less. And the mind to begins to spin games of chance, for we never really know the outcome of intersections of one's life.  Perhaps he'll use the 1000 yen to buy a few bottles of rotgut sake, and beat the wife around later.  Or maybe, he'll use it to play pachinko, which leads to even greater riches to come.   

The light is just beginning to enter the forest as I do, so I am hyper-aware of animals commuting home from the night-shift.  But the only beasties I encounter are the olfactory delights of swine awaiting their slaughter at the abattoir atop the hill, filling every inch of lung with each labored breath.  Plum blossoms fill the eye, hoof prints of deer in the dew below.  

Most of the day is spent on forestry road, punctuated by brief sections of rip-rap, and fallen-down homes.  I am certain that Daniel and I had missed this, had stayed on the main road below.  I do remember the bouldering field of Yuhi-ga-oka, the immense stones as high a three story buildings.  What follows is probably the longest section of forest trail, which drops steeply down what in the rain must be murder. Just beyond at Otani, I realize that we had previously gone really wrong here in 2019, following the forest road straight down to the highway.  But a smaller road twists upward again, past what must be the home of a trainer of hunting dogs, who bark aggressively in an aural version of the wave.  

 

 Around a few corners, the signage keeps me on the road, but maps show a steep descent down into a broad clear cut valley.  I descend around the stumps and corpses of trees, until I notice my GPS indicating the trail is slightly above me to the left.  I scramble up, and meet the remnants of old trail that escorts me down to Route 311.    

It's a long road walk until a brief respite of forest leads me to the turn-off of  Maruyama Senmaida. I climb as the road switchbacks up to the handful of small souvenir stalls, and farmhouses, and a massive boulder.  I cut between the houses along a wonky rock path toward the top of the hill.  This is my third visit here, but the first in perfect weather.  It's over a month until the rice will be planted, but even the brownish fields are a marvel of geometry.  The landscape almost looks shattered.   

 

As I had already twice crossed Tōri-tōge, I stick to the road, ignoring signs telling me it is closed up ahead.  All is well until I come around a bend to encounter a massive landslide, with rows of truck tires stacked up to prevent encroachment.  As they are only waist high,  I am up and over, passing a handful of large diggers at rest within the landslide scar, then over the tires on the far side.  Thank god it's Sunday, and no one around to turn me back.    

I note a narrow road that leads me diagonally back toward the one of Senmaida's two bus stops.  I'd noticed earlier that the opposite end was marked with a sign for the Hongudō, and it is along this quiet forested road that I take my final steps.  Then my thumb takes over, gaining me a ride toward Kumano city, and my train, and enough time to yet again grab a Mosburger, an act that is becoming almost ceremonial at journey's end.

 

On the turntable:  The Police, "Synchronicity"