What's in a Name

 

 

In the twelve years since I began walking the Hōkkoku Kaidō, I was never really sure of the name.  I similarly saw it referred to as the Hokuriku-dō, but was unable to definitively distinguish between the two.  To complicate matters, there is another Hōkkoku Kaidō far to the east in Shinshū, and most books and websites deal with that one, no doubt due to its proximity to the capital.  But the internet finally caught up with me, and I recently learned that the name Hōkkoku refers only to the section that leaves the Nakasendō at Toriimoto, to cross the Tochinoki Pass before terminating at Imajō.  From there it takes the sole moniker, Hokuriku-dō.

And there was a second clue.  Somewhere in north Shiga I picked up an map of old battlefields and ruined castles.  It was my guide through the summer of '21, as I did a dozen day trips exploring a variety of sites before a cooling dip in Lake Biwa.  The map clearly reiterated the Hōkkoku as passing through Kinomoto and continuing north.  All along I had thought it led south from Tsuruga, a route I walked back in 2013.  But apparently I was wrong.  

So it was that I boarded a train in the winter-dawn darkness of Kyoto station.  A waiting taxi drove the dull concrete highway from Imajō to the cobblestone entrance to Itadori-juku, whose thatch roofed houses impressed me as much on this frigid morning as they had when I'd passed through in 2009.   Most of the previous week's snowfall had melted off, but everything still hung cold and wet.  Unlike my previous visit, I turned left to return to Route 365, before following a smaller road that paralleled the highway.

Route 365 continued on above me, though apparently not much traveled here, to judge from all the broken rubbish that had been launched from it.  There was a preponderance of pre-2011 television sets, and weirdly, a bag of unopened bread.  A road-closed sign had me slightly worried, a worry which was quickly amplified when I saw the barricade that had been built midway along.  I scrambled up and over, through thick weeds that sometimes sprang back to slap me in the face.  I suppose that's one way to wake up on a crisp winter morn.  

Where I rejoined the main road I found another barricade, the twisting route beyond now closed.  There was massive construction going on, the concreting of what had been a beautiful, fast-moving river further down.  Much equipment lay about, heavy and light, and the sign here told me that it was to help deal with the snows of future years.  Luckily it was just before working hours, no flag-wavers around to tell me I couldn't carry on.  So I pushed toward the pass, the black ice of the previous night now aglow with the coming rays of the sun.  

This old route continued on awhile, until reaching a set of switchbacks that folded the road near completely back on itself.  I knew that the old Hōkkoku would not have done this, and would have continued along the riverbank.  At the first bend, I sought what could have been part of the ancient highway, then pushed myself up a slick ridge along what was little more than animal trail now.  After a few days of rain, the earth was beginning to give way beneath my feet, forcing me to clutch clumps of grass near ground level where it was stronger.  

With a bit of labor, I made it back up to the road.  The absence of cars made for easy walking, down the center strip.  The iconic Heart Rock I mistook for concrete.  From this height, I could see a lovely open patch beside the creek down in the valley.  This creek fed the dam which I had determined impassible.  That was probably the old road.  I carried on up the tarmac with my eyes aimed down into that valley, trying to maintain sight of that old path, or what I took for old path.  I hate moments like these, when I find my quest for authenticity has been diluted by the modern world. I knew that trail would continue to haunt me over the coming months and years, until in a wild spur of the moment I'd return to walk it. 

Patches of snow colonized the shady northwest corners of the road where it curled to hug the mountain face. This culminated in a small ski resort at the pass, still devoid of snow but with the lifts rotating beneath blue skies.  A few workmen were around, tinkering with this and that, one of them painting his truck with a paintbrush.  As I knew this place was meant to open in about a week, they'd soon begin to turn the green hillsides white with artificial snow.      

I walked over to where the old road would have met the pass, and the faint trail was camouflaged by wave upon wave of high, dense grass.  I'd thought about descending a bit to see how it all connected, but it was damn near impenetrable.  So I instead turned and continued down the other side of the pass, along a road now open.  Here and there the road broadened into overflow parking, but I couldn't imagine the resort got much traffic anymore.  As if to validate this, an old snowboard shop stood shuttered and collapsing into itself.  In fact there was little else here but hills on one side and a strip of open grassland on the other.  A BMW streaked past up to the resort and then back again.  As I knew I'd come to no other structures or hamlets for at least an hour, I thought I'd try to hitch.  But nothing else came.  So I pushed on, popping my earbuds in to distract myself from the monotony with a recording of an old Lenny Bruce performance.     

I finally arrived at a small settlement, at the heart of which was the towering trees of Hiromine Shrine.  The water gods too were active here, in the form of a spring that left the hillside to fill my bottle.  I found myself climbing again, and just before the road entered tunnel I diverted down the old highway, it too closed and traffic-free.  It was lovely, gentle climb beside a small stream before reaching a pair of small Jizo statues and a trio of A-frame cabins that marked the pass.  Down the other side the views opened up for the first time, and I sat awhile against a now useless guardrail, enjoying lunch and Lake Biwa far off in the distance.   

 

A scattering of deer bones in one of those old snow tunnels was a hint of what was to come.  Rounding a bend, I saw a buck thrashing beside the roadside.  He'd caught his foreleg in a tangle of cable that had peeled off the concreted hillside behind him.  The violence in his movements indicated it had just happened, and when he eventually saw me he went into a frenzy, somersaulting numerous times as he tried to escape. 

I put down my pack and pulled out the wire-cutters of my multi-tool, talking softly and gently to him as I approached.  He continued to pitch and buck as I got up behind him.  As I attempted to cut the wire a meter or so from his leg, he kept trying to gut me with his antlers, lowering his head again and again. The candelabra of sharp points on his head would have gone right through me had he made contact.  I could only imagine both of us dying there that night, side by side on the road.  

I moved a few steps uphill, just out of range and began to cut.  I don't imagine he could understand what I was doing, but seemed to calm some.  Once I'd finished the cutting, he dropped to lay in the mud of the roadside.  I returned to my pack and shouted a few times to get him to run off. But he simply lay there, breathing heavily, and watching me. Probably exhausted from adrenaline, and the struggle.  I'm sure I am anthropomorphizing when I say that I saw almost understanding in his eyes.  

A hamlet stood where I rejoined the main road.  I knew it was some distance to the next one so tried to hitch.  It wasn't long before a car came by, which slowed, then seeing my masked but foreign face, sped off again.  I swore and gestured as he did, thrashing about just as much as the deer had a little earlier. 

The road crossed the Hokuriku expressway, and just below, an older tunnel of stone cut beneath both.  It was here that I finally thumbed my ride. They were an ancient couple, the husband more so than the wife.  He was hard of hearing, forcing me to repeat myself numerous times, and finally leaning forward a bit, which I'd wanted to avoid so as not to create any Covid-related anxiety.  In doing so, I completely missed where I wanted to be dropped off. I laughed as I backtracked about half the distance of my five minute ride. I suppose I was destined to walk the whole thing today.  

Energy flagging, I pushed on through a chain of little hamlets, each increasing in size the closer we got to Kinomoto.  There was the odd explanatory sign, the occasional old Meiji-era building, as we all marched into the future.  And with my arrival at Kinomoto station, the Hōkkoku Kaidō was finally, and definitively, walked.   

 

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On the turntable:  Badfinger, "No Dice" 

On the nighttable: Mitch Cullin, Tideland"

Eight on, Eight off

Awoke to the sun rising on what would be yet another flawless sky, last week's typhoon having purged all the moisture from the air.  And with the sun, came the heat.

The steam coming off the paddies indicated that the night at least had been cool.  It was pleasant to walk the still-shaded streets of Kinomoto, this one in particular lined with old wooden homes and shops.  The lamps were unnecessary in the light of day, but the lamp posts illuminated the way in the metal characters forged upon them, characters bearing the kanji for the Hokkoku Kaidō. 

But all things do come to an end.  Just as I was beginning to enjoy the sun's soft caress on my skin, I took a sharp right onto busy Rte 8.  I hate these roads most at this time of day, when commuters are racing to work, their attention ever-forward, in complete disregard for anything beside the path.  And where the sidewalk ends...  I cross over the left, always left, so that I'll be able to face the fast moving traffic, allowing myself to pull a last minute leap should a driver's eyes be engaged by keitai, or the morning news broadcast upon their dashboard.

A few of the old post towns serve as pit stops, taking me away from the rush of metal, and enabling my adrenaline to slow.  Here, most is wood and tile, and the occasional thatch.  The rooflines of the latter resemble the prows of ships.  The temples and shrines through here have an interesting characteristic that I've never seen.  Rather than having the wooden decks that usually line the perimeter, it is as if the decks have been built, then folded upward to rest against the sides of the structures. This adds an interesting psychological element in drawing the eyes too upward, the movement extending beyond the pitched roofs and into the sky above.  Not unlike Christian churches, really.    

I take a rest in the shade of one temple gate, with the snip of scissors sounding behind me, in the hands of gardeners trimming the trees within the grounds. Then I'm moving out of town again, where the houses leave off to reveal the straight lines of dirt paths and cropped rice stalks, all perfectly aligned and leading toward the tufts of trees which serve to hide larger shrines.  

I cross a small river over the old bridge, now limited to pedestrian use.   For me, these bridges are straight out of the American South, as they link riverbanks thick with trees.  The river itself is crowded with water foul -- ducks and egrets and heron.  The rain swollen rivers are a banquet.  

 On the far side of the bridge is another post town with the curious name of Torahime, or 'Tiger Princess."  The sign boasts of its history, but all I see is ugly development.  The road here is broader than most, with the old structures all on the left.  A new bridge is being built at the town's southern end, taking us further from what ever history once existed here.  

Eventually, I arrive in Nagahama.  Here, history exists in spades.  The Hokkoku Kaidō is quite spiffy here, the older structures having been restored to house galleries and restaurants.  This is Japan at its best.  The side streets too intrigue, filled with people strolling around.  There is even a craft beer brewery.  I will be back.  

I'm teased by views of Lake Biwa, just a few dozen meters to my right. But I never arrive on her shores.  Instead, I'm fed onto yet another busy highway devoid of sidewalks.  I'll pass through a few post towns, none of which honor their past.  There are a few old stone road markers, which probably would have been a nuisance to remove.  Then the road itself disappears in Maibara, and I'm forced to walk a long circuitous route around its train yard.  

All south of here is similarly characterless.  Massive industrial factories.  Love hotels.  The only hint at the natural are a pair of wild boar traps.  I find great relief when arriving at the turn-off for the Nakasendo, for I know that this long 28 km trudge is coming to an end.  Toriimoto really should get more words than it is usually allotted, as here the Nakasendō was bisected not only by the Hokkoku Kaidō, but also the Chōsenjin Kaidō coming in from Hikone.  There is still some personality to the old town, with nice wooden buildings and the handful of descriptive signs.  I've been through here three times, but today I notice little.  As usual, I always seem to finish these walks with a dash for a train, not wanting to wait thirty minutes for the next.  And so with a panting of breath and a leap into the air conditioned carriage, I too, am history. 

MAP: http://latlonglab.yahoo.co.jp/route/watch?id=52de250cf9b27f73f8e8d09df234becc



On the turntable:  Pink Floyd, "Ummagumma"
On the nighttable:  Alexandra Horowitz, "On Looking"      


   

Villages of the Watermills

I've been a few days in the Kiso Valley, and after seeing my clients off in Nagoya, I speed over to north Biwa to continue the Hokkoku Wakiōkan, from where I left off in spring 2009.  I remember that as being a delightful walk, and today too doesn't disappoint, as I'm led along a well-marked and quite meandering course.  Farmers are busy in their fields, putting their rice fields to sleep for the winter. And almost in parallel, people are busy cleaning the family graves.  

The trail takes me behind a factory and though a bamboo forest.  This is prime habitat for the mamushi, and I'm less than pleased that the trail is overgrown.  My eyes stay glued to the ground.  With each step, it seems that everything that can possibly take flight does, with large, fist-sized frogs startling most.   I also find myself walking the edge of a harvested rice paddy, the owner herself having told me that this was where the old road once ran.

Steps onward, I come to the site of the battle of the Anegawa.  It is now just a small stream running amidst the field, but one summer afternoon in 1570 this was dubbed the River of Blood.  I'm astounded by just how many battles took place in this area, but it makes sense considering these flat lands stand before the series of passes that once protected the Emperor and his old capital.  In the stillness I see no life, yet there are the occasional graves, and the pile of dozens of bicycles in their own graveyard nearby.  The shrouds that had once covered the heads of enemy dead are now the white of soba flowers, which bobble atop their tall thin stalks.

The canals have not only been a companion but have given this walk its beauty.  I'll leave them temporarily as I walk through grape orchards and into the forest.  When I come out the other side, I'm at the foot of Ibuki-san.  Parasails circle high overhead.   The mountain itself looks less amused, her left shoulder having been savagely hacked into.  I squint awhile at the upper flanks, looking for hikers, but they'd be too far off.  So I drop down to the river's edge, near the remnants of an old bridge that once crossed here.  I move toward an existing bridge downriver, musing at the power of water, and at how well it represents the flow of the inevitable, in particular when it confronts the follies of man.   I sit awhile with the higanbana flowers at the river's edge, yet another reminder of the impermanent.  

I'm getting closer to Gifu now, and the pastoral scenes begin to taper off.  As if to further emphasize the lesson on impermanence, the battery on my iPhone dies.  This is tragic for me, as I've been following a map on its screen.  Without it, I'd never be able to guess the zigzag course I've been following.  Amazingly, I find a power outlet on the side of a bank right beside me.  I plug in, sit in the shade, and listen to Bob Dylan sing about something or other.  After a satisfactory interval, I move on again.  From here is a busy road, moving uphill.  I am offered the choice of a few smaller forest roads just to my right, but the trails are too overgrown, the grass knee high.  I may seen like I'm a little too preoccupied with snakes (and like all phobias, perhaps that's true), but I do know that this is the time of year when the snakes are being forcibly evicted from the rice paddies where they've made a happy home all summer, feasting on frogs.  So they're now on the move, crankily looking for food, and aggressively protecting their newborn.  This is the season when I see the most vipers and anyway, I don't like walking where I can't see what's underfoot.  

I finally get a quick reprieve from the busy highway.  As I cross a small river in the forest, my battery dies again.  Incredibly, a car drives by, stops, and asks me if I need a lift.  I politely refuse, and when I explain my situation, the driver offers to let me use the outlet at her house, just a two minute walk up the road.  I take another short break there, where I'm offered some tea to replenish my own batteries.  I smile at this kind woman's Red Sox T-shirt.  We've woken her teenage son upon our return, who, unfazed at my foreign face, slinks off somewhere.  The photo of a man smiles down from above the TV.  Probably the father.  Probably deceased.   Living amidst all the history of the area, it little surprises that my hostess is a fan.  We chat awhile, until I decide that I'd better get moving again.  Due to my late start, I'll be getting to my train close to dark, and I know I have one more patch of forest to cross.

But it too is overgrown, and as I sit and above looking downward, I see no apparent way across the confluence of streams that the trail bisects.  So I stay once again on the road, dropping to the true course when I can.  

This is Sekigahara proper now, obvious due to the frequent signs which indicate where generals once camped on those nights leading into October 1600.  I too have spent plenty of nights here, inevitably in restless sleep.  Looking to kill time before breakfast, I'd stroll the area, with the sun rising on yet another day marching away from history.  It isn't long before I recognize where I am, and my phone can stay in my pocket until I get to the station.


MAP:  http://www.yamareco.com/modules/yamareco/detail-285112.html


On the turntable:  Charles Mingus, "Tijuana Moods"
On the nighttable:   Lowell Sheppard, "Chasing the Cherry Blossom"

On Noto's Broad Shoulder

I start way up in Fukui today, just out of view of the sea. The last of this morning's multiple trains lets me out at Imajo, a small village above a river. I make my way south from here along a highway that is heavily trafficked by huge black caterpillars and their brown haired yanki cousins. Easily the size of my pinkie, many have been crushed flat, so I dub this the "Caterpillar Trail of Tears."

It's a hot day walking this asphalt highway that calls itself the Hokuriku-do, one of the minor Edo period routes that connected this region to the Shogun's capital. I check my map, which shows that I'll be on this shoulderless road for the next 5km, before eventually turning off and being rewarded with a few highlights. My thumb wins the argument with my feet. I'm soon picked up by an old farmer in his 80s, who, after I tell him what I'm up to, drives the route slowly, explaining things as we go along. He shows where traces of the original Kaido remain, snaking in and out of the forest, covered with high weeds and barely passable. I think of all the other roads I've walked, and wonder how many of my footfalls have been compromises, falling upon newer roads running adjacent to the actual ancient paths themselves. Doesn't matter really. The farmer points out old landmarks that used to line the route. One of the newer ones is his own home, and he seems especially proud to have a drink vending machine out front. He doesn't know my destination of Hakusan Jinja, and stops to ask somebody working in a field. Old friends, they talk awhile. As we pull away, he points out another man nearby, and in a bit of local gossip, tells me that he is living in a kura.

My guide eventually brings me to the shrine, just a simple weathered building in the forest. There used to be a temple next door but it has been torn down by the locals due to lack of use. I walk up the road, my eyes now easily picking out bits of the old trail. One section is cobblestone and leads me between some incredible three-story kayabuki homes. Smoke pours out of one, the owners going about the traditional method of killing insects up in the thatch. I move above them onto a narrow paved road leading up to the ski area. It is very steep and switchbacked and as a car comes I see no point in using my own power. (I'm getting good at this 'kiseru' approach to pilgrimage.) The driver is a guy I'd seen out in front of the thatch-roofed farmhouses. A piano tuner, he says he spends most of his days travelling around the surrounding countryside doing his trade. He tells me that he is merely a caretaker of one of the houses, all of them owned by the local Board of Education. It's a good simple life he says, in spite of the fact that the winters here see two meters of snow.

He drops me off just above the ski lifts and goes about his business of picking mountains veggies. I continue up a small path and see a bearded man who doesn't appear happy that I'm here. I smile and ask politely if I can pass. He nods, still not speaking. His three dogs wait for me out in front of his home, a large teahouse at the pass. They all bark, and one of them is unchained. I talk to him softly but firmly in English as I continue up toward the peak. The path is narrow and overflown by the occasional bee. The whole forest is literally humming with them, like the disembodied ghost voices from a horror film. Beyond this, the trail becomes a narrow concrete strip that leads to a small lodge sitting near the top of the higher ski lifts. I walk across their boards and look across at Hakusan to the northeast. The last stretch of trail is wide and must accommodate skiers who come to the open clearing beyond, for the gorgeous views of Tsuruga Bay. It is hot and clear today, the sky nearly the color of the sea. Two massive oil tankers are anchored near a nuclear plant at the mouth of the bay. There is a large board with a marked photo explaining the landmarks, though it is about two meters up and hard to see from flat ground. I imagine that skiers would look down to read it. I sit and have lunch here, my eyes rarely leaving the sea. But the wind is picking up a little, making the high grasses move. More than once I'm tricked into thinking a big animal is coming up behind me. Spooked, I make my way back into the humming forest.

I pass the tea house again, and find a small well topped with wood carvings. The surly guy must be an artist, so he can't be all bad. I move down into kumazasa, which doesn't help with the uneasiness I had felt up at the top. I'm dropping fast down a narrow and steep canyon, lined with this bear grass and intersecting the many small streams which run into a river that I can hear somewhere below me. I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to run into a bear in here. For the first time in years, I pull out my bear bell. I'm about halfway down when I notice a large stone wall up a side canyon to my right. Based on the shape, I'm sure to find an altar there. I do, and I also find three woman out searching for warabi for tempura. I chat with them for a few minutes. I ask about bears and one of them mentions that there had been a sighting near here recently. Her friend smiles as she lifts up her pack to reveal a literal windchime that hangs down about 6 inches from the bottom. A bear that hears that thing would probably become too chilled out to attack, because it would be, like, too big a hassle man.

The trail widens out to become a track layered with soft pine needles. I finally hit asphalt again and weigh my options. The trail becomes unmarked as it nears Tsuruga, but I can pick it up again farther south at Kinomoto. My choices are to hitch down to Tsuruga station and take a series of trains. Or I can thumb through this big tunnel right beside me to a junction on the other side, and try to flag another ride south from there, which should take far less time. I'm lucky to catch a lift with an old couple who are, amazingly, going all the way to Kinomoto. This ride is the antithesis of the first. The driver didn't engage me much in conversation, except to complain about things he saw along the road. The woman beside him never said a word. As we head south on a smaller mountain road I realize the difficulty I'd have had trying to thumb it, there not being much traffic. It's a pleasant half hour, not having to entertain and make conversation. I'm free to admire the view of the blue steep-pitched tin roofs that protect the old thatch beneath. The flooded rice fields are green-flecked glass tabletops.

I get out at the station and head up a street stuck in a time soon after the war. At the top is Jizoin, which has an interesting maze that runs beneath the floor of the Hondo. It is a fun diversion to spend a few minutes in complete darkness, my hands running along the walls which curve at the corners in a way that protects noses and eyeglasses. I pop back out to follow the main street lined which a dozen old-timey sake shops. Must be big drinkers up here, with good rice and clean water. A trail marker at the far end of the street helps the drunks to stumble toward right toward Edo, or left to Kyo and Ise beyond.

I choose Edo, and spend the rest of the day walking quiet paths between rice fields that connect a series of villages that are famous for their waterwheels. The first, Amemori, is the most impressive. A dozen wheels dot the moats that run in front of all the houses. Planters in the shape of boats wear flowers that rival the color of the carp that swim around them. This is all overshadowed by the huge tree groves which hide shrines and old stone markers. The village is right out of the last section of Kurosawa's "Dreams," that penultimate Japanese scene which helped inspire not only my moving to this country, but the wandering ways I've acquired since. Yet ironically, there is a distinctive Korean flavor here. I find out that a major Korean statesman had made his home in this village, and the history is strongly Korean. At a small museum, I find out that the Korean diplomatic contingent made its way down both the Chosenjin kaido (of last week's walk) and along this Hokkoku Kaido, going beyond Edo to their terminus in Nikko. This goes a long way in explaining the distinct continental look of Toshoji, which I had also visited this Golden Week, along with a few thousand of my closest friends. Somehow, I've unwittingly chosen a Korean theme to pervaded my holiday, all the way down to the choice of restaurant the night before.

While pondering this, I suddenly notice a long snake swimming up one of the moats. It can't climb the steep stone wall, and lashes itself to the wheel, trying to climb to the top. Yet every time it does, it quickly finds itself back under water. The body twists and grasps one of the spokes, going up and around, up and around until it looks as if the snake might actually tie itself in a knot. (Is that even possible?) If it could move across the shaft at the center of the wheel it would be fine, but it never quite figures that out. I watch for probably 10 minutes, breathless with anticipation at how it'll turn out. Finally, it lets go, and swims down river again, slowly, as if trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

I move out toward the river, overhung with trees. This is an area right out of the American South, with the birdsong, the kids on bikes, and the shop keepers napping in chairs in front of their stores. I finally finish the day at Otani temple, a haunted place that sits below Otani Castle, which fell in one of the more vicious battles of the Warring States period. Another snake greets me as I enter, just above a field known as the Plain of Blood. I catch my final ride of the day with a French guy and his friendly Japanese wife. Along the way, I pester the girl's poor mom with questions about kanji I saw during my walk, trying to figure out even more of the multitude of elements that made up one very rich day.

On the turntable: Muse, "Hullabaloo"