Tokai Shizen Hoedown: Chubu VI

 During the party that was the Bubble Years of the 1980s, the Japanese government seemed to throw money in every which direction, and luckily some of it landed on hiking trails throughout the nation.  Sadly, that money blew away not long afterward, and the dwindling municipal funds were in most cases earmarked for projects that were less niche.

As the Tōkai Shizen Hōdō (TSH) is one of Japan's better used trails, it got a proportionally large amount of TLC back in the day.  But its seems to have gotten very little since.  I've often singled out Shiga Prefecture for its lack of trail upkeep, as wooden trail markers erode or fade away on rusting metals signs.  (If a hiker gets lost in the forest, does anyone hear him swear?)  And it was in this very prefecture that Wes and I began our hike. 

I finished the Kansai section of the TSH back in 2009, arriving at Tsuge Station after a three day push.  I have written before of the difficulty of some of those sections, namely the horizontal, faux-wooden slabs of concrete that had been staked into the ground to form steps up and down the steeper sections.  Somehow these engineers skipped class on the day their textbooks covered erosion.  The result of two decades of neglect was the creation of concrete hurdles about 30 centimeters off the ground, resulting in a goosestep that would be the highlight of any North Korean parade.  Finding a steady rhythm proved impossible, and even as I write, my legs rest heavily beneath my laptop. 

Being close to Iga and Koga villages, we were moving over mountains that were once trod by ninja,  and the trails, and the higher peaks above which shadowed them, are even today used by yamabushi, which makes sense as ninja were simply yamabushi who had found a steady paycheck.  Yet the ninja never had the challenge of these stairs (for as we know, their tricks included moving up steep surfaces without steps at all).

All these steps led us over three passes, as we moved laterally over three mountains ranges.  The watersheds that lay between were a delight, especially the first, moving through Fudō Gorge whose waterfalls took their names from esoteric deities.  The path through here was badly washed out, with multiple water crossings that required a few moments to find the trail again on the opposite bank.  The path itself fell off into space on a few occasions, with bridge hardly deserving the name.  A good bit of fun and not at all for the novice hiker.  Yet it was here that I found the most beauty, the water below running clear, over stones polished to the fine smooth of marble.

A second pass led beneath electrical towers and toward a small village that clung to the last vestiges of population.  Tea bushes grew into Angela Davis-like proportions, and an old weathered shrine still had lanterns from a century before.  The latter hosted our weary forms for lunch, and as we dined, the last of summer's mosquitoes dined upon us. 

The TSH eventually dropped us onto a busy road that would have been an unpleasant hour-long walk down to Seki.  We'd  decided earlier to instead traverse the Kannon-yama trail through the hills above.  It wasn't a long climb to the admittedly diminutive Fudesute-yama, but the previous sixteen kilometers had us running on fumes by this point.  Hiroshige had found inspiration in this mountain, dedicating to it one of his prints on the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō.  I instead was finding it difficult to inspire my legs to move onward.  The trail was better here, the best of the day, moving over rough volcanic stone.  But the steps still made the occasional appearance, and over this last four kilometers, my thighs would spasm during the climbs. And these steps were some of the worst of the day, as the trail had slid away to bury over most of them.   When facing a new set, I'd mutter in frustration, "Your mother's ass."  I paused at one point to remember where this expression came from (Dom DeLuise ad-libbing during outtakes for Smokey and the Bandit 2 bizarrely enough, which I hadn't seen for maybe 35 years ), and while I thought I had stopped for no more than a minute, Wes's voice calling from above pulled me back to what must've been a five minute reverie.  Mind was now as tired as the body.

I do recall a nice overlook of Matsuzaka and Ise Bay beyond, then eventually, a long steep descent into the picturesque post-town of Seki.  Trains were sparse through here, but we'd timed it well enough to not have to rush, and even had time to grab a coffee in town.  And finally the small train pulled in, where we sat with another hiker who looked equally spent.  Or perhaps he was faking.  There were ninjas about after all.  



On the turntable:  Joe Strummer, "Acton Town Hall Firefighter's Benefit"
On the nighttable:  Frederick Burnaby,  "A Ride to Khiva "

Tokai Shizen Hoedown: Chubu V

The Tokai Shizen Hōdō, while technically a single course, is in fact accentuated by a number of looping branches that diverge from the main trunk.  Unfortunately somebody thought it would be a clever idea to put all of these trail intersections in places that were far from any public transport, namely on the peaks of mountains.  What this meant was a fair amount of backtracking at either end of these intersections, not to mention expensive taxi rides.  

In this particular case the cab took me out a long narrow valley that culminated in an underused golf course, and a sad little zoo.  And on a morning as cold as this one, I didn't see anyone on the links, nor any sign of animals but for the frantic barking of caged dogs.  At the place where the road ended it splintered out into a number of smaller lanes, and it took a fair bit of guesswork to figure out which one.  Before long, I was able to come across a trail marker for the TSH, and following that path uphill for about ten minutes, I was able to come to the junction that I'd been looking for.  Then I turned around and went back.          

This was the first, yet for me the final, portion of the Ena Route of the TSH.  I'd walked about half of it repeatedly over the years, while leading tours along the Nakasendo,  and from there I walked south to rejoin the main eastbound path again.  After I finished my intended stretch today, I planned to return to the end of the Kansai section, and pick it up from there. 

But this section seemed almost as if it were trying to make me forego the whole thing altogether.  There are few things as uninspiring as 28km over tarmac, through bland suburb broken by tinny monuments to small industry.  Not to mention the stench coming from the paper factory coming from over the rise in Kani, which filled my nostrils every few steps. 

But I plodded on, down busy roads, beneath highway flyovers, concrete ever underfoot.  Over the course of the day, my perspective would shift to reveal the peaks of Mounts Ontake, and Hakusan and Ena, each snow covered and looming far out in the distance.  A man joined me for a short stretch, falling into step along the way to his car parked nearby.  He offered me an apple, which could have been the apple of knowledge, though I'm not sure.  We chatted awhile, and once again I was amazed that people in the countryside rarely acknowledge the fact that I'm not Japanese, and talk to me like a normal human being. 

The apple proved to be my only food for awhile, as the store I'd planned to hit up for lunch had closed years ago.   Others lay just off my route, but it would be awhile before I'd pass one closer in.  On the way there would be two hills, a narrow, sakura-lined concrete river, and a small tunnel like that from the dead platoon scene in Kurosawa's Dreams.  

I lingered over that eventual lunch, resting a pair of aching feet. My iPod is a godsend on days like this, but the battery conked out not long afterward. And my mood soured from there on, fixated upon whoever had created this route.  They had a lot to answer for, calling the section a "nature trail."

Finally, under a massive tree tied to some legend from the Heian Period,  a quaint town of Kukuri rose up on both sides to meet me.  The concrete remained, but the scenery at least was a little better, above a long, sinuous reservoir that was pretty in its own way.  The trail took an abrupt turn here, as if it too wanted to venture into the surrounding hills.  And finally, my feet found something softer beneath them.  

My mood was lifted to such an extent that I had no fear when I got to the bear.  I never saw it, but I heard its threatening huff, then the sound of its bulk crashing down the hillside.  I barely broke stride, but grew less pleased with the trail when it dropped me in the very direction that the bear had run.  Wild boar had been active here as well, the trail shredded by their foraging snouts.  

So it was with no little irony that I was happy to come to road once again.  My guidebook showed that a path would before long divert me to the right and through forest again, but the ample signage through here kept me on the fire road as it weaved down toward the valley floor.  The route must have been changed at some point.  

This was verified by a man I met along the way.  He told me that he walked this road often, and wasn't too happy when I mentioned the bear.  The stick he carried was for such possibilities, as unlikely as they were, and the way he wielded it gave me the impression that he was a martial artist.  He showed me some of the side routes that he sometimes took, telling me that they would lead me to the train station faster. But I was determined to stay with the TSH.  So we continued on, chatting as we did, though there was some sort of disjunct in the conversation, and I assumed that he spent a lot of time alone.  

When we hit the valley floor, I left him behind, and moved quickly along a small stretch of river toward Mitake station.  I knew this town well from my Nakasendo walks, had many times enjoyed its quiet temple and free museum,  and the tasty okonomiyaki at the shop run by the Korean lady who I learned had recently passed away.  No matter today, for I simply wanted to get off my sore feet, and was lucky to find a seat amongst the high school kids who knew nothing of bears, or old roads, kids who like me simply wanted to move past unpleasantness and get on to the next thing.  


On the turntable:  Eric Clapton, "Stages"

Tokai Shizen Hoedown: Chubu IV

It is a quiet Sunday, but I don't like how it has begun.  My taxi driver doesn't know the way, and each of his U-turns costs me fare money. I point this out to him, and feel badly immediately at being so petty, so tell him the girl in the photo on his dashboard (a grandchild obviously) is really cute.  He then turns off the meter.

I look for my farmer chauffeur but don't see him.  I'm hoping the neighboring beasts are similarly sleeping in.  Within minutes, I'm already in the forest, facing a steep uphill push.  The can of coffee and single piece of bread are quickly proving insufficient as fuel.  I'm already exhausted when I come to a Youth Camp at the top of the mountain, the middle-school boys eating noisily and excitedly, the girls jogging along in a wide variety of heights.  Like my energy levels, the signage soon eludes me, so I walk to a tall building to ask directions.  A man in the window cautions me against bears, which have become more active the last few years.  I take this information with me, fear newly fed.  

There is a tourist farm of sorts adjacent, with cabins and a few families milling about. It makes me miss my own daughter, so I have a quick chat with her over another can of coffee.  The road then drops me a long way before entering forest again. Each step downward will eventually be paralleled by another one up.  It is a roller-coaster day, crossing laterally a series of ranges.  Up and up to a pass, then down again to bisect a forest road. And repeat, and repeat.  And repeat.   This is the nature of the TSH, designed as it was to take in as much of the natural landscape as possible.  I mean, the thing actually detours in order to climb the steepest parts.  

That said, I would consider this particular sections to be one of the best.  Granted, a lot of the forest was cedar, but that too is part of it.  Nature, albeit with a lower-case "n."  So too were the views, of electrical towers walking the hills much like I was. Boy, do I envy their stride.  

And in the hills I remain, the ground alive with leaping insects, the narrower grassy sections the abode of spiders, awaiting the next home-delivered meal.  The constant shifting of elevation is doing a number on my legs, and thus inspired, I pull out my poles at some point, speeding along demi-arachnid style.    

I reach something called the Ise Pass, which has an elaborate torii framing the direction of the Grand Shrine itself.  My map shows that another farm was coming up, which promises a cold drink.  But it has closed long ago, so onward I push, through a mixed growth forest, the varied leafy vegetation punctuated with signs warning of bears.        

And finally, the morning side of noon, I reach the base of the stairs leading to my final peak, Nebiso-ga-take.  Despite all the up and down, I have stayed relatively high, but still face a good 400-meter vertical ascent to its 1120 meter summit.  I sit and eat rice balls, day-old and slightly crunchy.   Just up the road from me is a carpark with a dozen vehicles. This is good luck for me, as I plan to return to where I am in order to thumb it to a train station.  I have three to choose from, each about 45 minutes drive away, and in a different prefecture.  I hope to go north, back to Akechi, in order to visit the Taishō period buildings I saw yesterday.  But first...

I push wearily up more stairs, leaning into my poles. I begin to pass people heading down, each a potential ride.  Most painful is meeting a groups of twenty old-timers, who chat with me awhile amidst a worn away section of eroded steeplechase steps.  I accelerate away through the beautiful forest, using the root system of deciduous trees for traction.   

I arrive in a sweaty mess at the top.  A chubby guy sits smoking over his camp stove.  Apparently Fuji is visible from up here, but he's never seen it despite three attempts.  A young couple tries to sit quietly not far from the summit marker, but they're interrupted by a group of chatty women in plaid who've come up the TSH from the Aichi side. I too will follow suit and try my luck with the Fuji view again, but that day is long off.  For now I have a ride to catch.

I fly down, using my poles as if skiing.  I am happy at each person I overtake, but the holy grail is the bigger group.  The descent should take 30 minutes, but I'm cutting well into that.  Suddenly, an ankle rolls, and I'm down.  Structurally I'm sound, but the dust and dirt have muddied an already sweat soaked body.  I dry as I go, and reach the carpark to find the group stretching out their goodbyes, as is customary.  

Just up the road is a small van, and stepping behind it, I change my clothes into a clean set from my pack.  I always take this precaution on summer hikes, as I don't want to revolt a potential ride.  But no one comes.  One by one, my group all turn west toward Nagoya.  The one vehicle that does pass is a younger man I'd met who leaves me by the side of the road.  Shit.

I walk east, knowing there is a turn off toward Akechi, which might be easier.  It is only about 15 minutes away, but no one passes in my direction.  I find the road to be a small one, which isn't promising.  Along the way is a bus shelter, which I approach optimistically, to find that the one bus a week leaves on Wednesday.  

Just as I have talked myself into giving up and thumbing toward Nagoya, a sports car approaches and stops.  The snaggle-toothed driver takes the turns quickly, his wife looking less than pleased with him for picking me up.  They drop me at a michi-no-eki on a busy road, telling me that my "chances are better here, that is, if anyone stops."  I frown at the pessimism and think as I always do, "Well dude, you stopped..."

It acts as a jinx, and I stand beside the road for nearly an hour.  I walk in the direct of Akechi, cursing snaggle-tooth with every step. My curses are eventually directed at each passing driver.  By the top of the hour I've convinced myself that the people of Inabu are the least hospitable in Japan.  Drastic, I know, but this it is the first time in over twenty years hitching in Japan that I am looking to be denied a ride. And I am really stuck, as I am far from trains or any alternate form of transport.  

Finally, a logging truck surprises in pulling over.  The driver, a logger, is young and friendly, and we exchange mountain stories over the next hour.  I've given up on the idea of any further sightseeing, which suits my feet fine.  I arrive finally at the train and once aboard, I gently sway along the border of seasons, as the cool of autumn blows through the window.


On the turntable:  The Clash, "Elvis has Left the Building"

Tokai Shizen Hoedown: Chubu III

I've noticed over the years the fear creeping in, the anxiety about the wild that hangs upon me more heavily than my backpack.  Granted, there has been an increase in animal encounters in Japan recently, but it doesn't warrant the fear.  The day's hike brings with it more worry than usual, as I am forced to undertake a late start, one that will guarantee the final hour will be walked in full darkness, and in a mountainous section to boot. The past few days have brought a taste of autumn, a time when the pre-hibernation beasties are most active, gorging themselves on the all you can eat banquet that is the Japanese mountainscape.  

Luckily I check my flashlight, and replace the failing batteries.  I dawdle when I reach Ena station, as I know that the train company has changed their schedules, forcing me to kill an hour.  The time allows me a rethink, and I decide to fork out for an expensive taxi ride in the hopes of getting to my inn before too late.  

I begin my walk a half an hour later in Akechi, an attractive little town that bills itself as "Taishō town,"  since a handful of buildings dotting this small valley were built in that early 20th Century era.  I cover the section I missed last time, following not only the TSH, but also something called the 'Taishō Walk' which leads me past a few of them, then up and over a small pass out of town.  

It is a pretty day through a series of attractive rural villages.  I'm fed now and again onto narrow forest roads that bisect short sections of plantation cedar. With each step I am getting more and more remote, but there is an annoying number of roads out here, which twist and spiral atop one another. Apparently the LDP has spent a lot of money in the area.  Multiple roads mean multiple places to go wrong, and I really don't have the daylight for it today.  I am (and will continue to be) lucky with the ample signage, but one sign has been scratched out and the directional arrow redirected.  It contradicts the map in my book, so I go with the devil I know, assuming that the 'corrected' sign is a prank.  After a nervous 20 minutes or so, I find that I made the right choice. 

I suspect 'road demons,' for the prank, especially after I pass a turn off for one of their race courses.  What is it with Gifu Prefecture and its Speed Kings?  Moments after thinking this, I hear the sound of motorbikes shrieking through turns somewhere above me.  The sound follows me well into the forest and never grew any less annoying.  

Bizarrely enough, members of that tribe come to my rescue.  I find myself walking up a newer section of road, one that is climbing steadily and beginning to compress into hairpin curves.  I've been diligent about walking every meter of this TSH, but I see no reason to be on this road, which brings a feeling of redundancy in the way it curls back on itself.  I turn to thumb a ride with the first car passing, its lowered frame nearly flush with the ground.  My heroes, a pair of Speed Kings, scream away in their usual noise, but prove to be polite in conversation, deferent in their choice of verb tenses.  I'm in the car less than five minutes, but they've saved me a tough climb and helped add fifteen crucial daylight minutes to my day.

I keep to this road awhile before it peters out in a picturesque village at the end of the day.  The sun is still bright and brings out all the shades of green.  The rice harvest is not long off now.  And above wells up my last set of mountains.  I have about an hour of daylight left, but need at least that to get through.  I push hard up the stairs into the trees.  My legs are drained and don't appreciate these concrete 'logs' that are a prominent feature of the TSH. While I appreciate the attempt to improve the trail, the earth beneath them gradually erodes away, and after a few years they are too high to comfortably ascend.  A few years after that, the hiker faces a steeplechase.  I'll take a gradual slope any day.

I arrive atop the pass winded and covered in a poultice of sweat and spiderwebs.  I've made good time.  The descent will take a full two kilometers, into the setting sun. The light is welcome, but it blinds me somewhat, and I can't get a good look at where I place my feet. What's making things worse is my state of mind.  The Japanese believe that telling ghost stories in summer helps to bring chills that ease the heat.  In that spirit (no pun) I've read a half dozen books of spooky tales over the last week, and my eyes are bringing new definition to the shadows.  And as the sun begins to leave the sky, the birds and insects seem to protest its going in a noisy cacophony. 

I pick up my pace as I turn through a long series of switchbacks, scaring a pair of deer whose footfalls echo away in a rhythm graceful and light.  Deer of course are not very bright, but can bears and boars become habituated to man's absence in the night?  Pigs are famously smart (though not enough to fly), and Russian bears can be taught to ride bicycles.  Do they know that after dark, man goes away, and the forest is essentially theirs? 

I reach the road again in the grey crepuscule.  I walk a short distance over to a bus stop, the one and only bus having left hours before.  I can't figure out the kanji for the village's name, so I take a photo of the characters to show my taxi driver for when I return tomorrow. I notice a farmer standing there, who seems on the verge of saying something, but chooses instead to turn toward his house. 

I face a long 8 km walk to Odo onsen, and my inn.   This is the only accommodation along this whole section, and had forced me to cover the distance I had gone.  But it ensures an easier day tomorrow.  I plod along the wide road, hoping for traffic, but everything is going in the wrong direction.  A single car passes in a half an hour, and doesn't even slow.  I know from experience that after full dark, no one will stop.  I call my inn to ensure them that I am still coming, and will be later than expected.  They seem less than happy at this news.  And at that very moment, a car pulls up, with the smiling face of the farmer.

He must be in his seventies, and built with the usually wiry gristle of his occupation.  I worry that he drove out this way simply to give me a lift, but he says that no, the only food around here is at the convenience store in town.  (Funny concept for a farmer.)  My inn happens to be next door, and the old woman in charge is surprised that I arrived so quickly.  So soon in fact that the bath is still tepid.  I sit as close as I can to the faucet, seeking the balance between full relaxation and a painful scalding.  Dinner too is a similarly lukewarm affair, taken alone in my room.  I had hoped for a bit of social hour in a common room, where the foreigner is the night's entertainment.  But I seem to be the only guest.  And the woman looking after me (probably the daughter-in-law) seems a bit anxious.  I ask if they ever get any foreign guests, and she tells that they had one once.  I do my best to be a good specimen, eating all my food, and replacing the futons in the morning.  I've pulled all of them out to build a high-rise bed platform, far more inviting than the single rock-hard layer provided.  But good manners aside, I pushed hard today, and need good rest for the 18 kg to come, all of them in mountains... 


On the turntable:  The Dubliners, "Greatest Hits"
On the nighttable:  Robert Byron, "The Road to Oxiona"

  

Tokai Shizen Hoedown: Chubu II

I pick up the trail where I'd left it.  Reading back over my previous post, I appeared to have had the same weather, though this time I had been blessed with good weather for the duration of my week-long tour.  The waning days of February had jumped ahead to mid-March temps, which had made for easy walking, though the hard crust beneath my snowshoes had turned to soup by lunchtime.  

But here at lower elevations I know that snow is behind me. My jacket is tucked into my backpack as I step off the train in the company of a bunch of elderly women, a surprising number for a weekday.  On the train I'd notice a tourist pamphlet that one of them held, and decide that this little town of Iwamura had enough going for it to explore.  I have little distance to cover today, but as daylight is an issue, I allow myself only hour to cover the three km up and back through town.  

It is worth the detour, along the straight arrow lane bisecting the old post town.  At some point, someone decided to preserve the place, and even the banks and post office wear an Edo period visage.  I can see the appeal for the aunties as well, since every single structure, be it business or house, has a display of dolls in their front windows for the upcoming Girl's Day. 

Many of these buildings have placards above announcing castella, which could also be serving as honey for the auntie hive-mind.  Of more interest to me is the Iwamura Sake Brewery, whose most famous output "Lady of the Castle" is a tribute to the area's famed former leader, "Onna Joshu."  (Which explains the popularity of the dolls.)  Inside the brewery they have prepared a tasting section, set up on a little narrow-gauge rail system that runs from the back of brewery.  I fortify myself with a few samples of the Lady's liquid courage, all of which are on the sweet side.    

I backtrack through town and pick up the TSH on the other side of the train station.  It follows a small stream, then is lost in the site of a new apartment building.  I cross the train line and cut through a field to find the path again.  It wends up between rice fields, then begins to climb.  

I huff and puff my way into a cloud of smoke which stretches toward me from a rubbish bonfire beside a new carpark at the top of the hill.  The carpark is massive and new and unbefitting its size.  The same can be said for the temple it serves, a sprawling mess of concrete and gravel.  I'm not sure how long the temple has stood here, but everything in it appears new, and rather than a sense of peace that these country temples tend to bring, all I get is the feeling that somebody around here needs to reread the precepts.  

On the way out I notice a tall Jizo, at the base of which are dozens of food and toy offerings for the deceased children the deity protects.  I buy a sweet drink and leave it at the statue's feet, an offering for Shimazaki Toson's three daughters who all passed away in a single year.  I had been reading about them just the day before in Naff's biography, in a harrowing passage that emphasized their illness and suffering, a passage that had conjured up tears.  As an aspiring writer, I know how difficult it is to balance work and family and creative endeavors. But in no way can I understand sacrificing all for one's art.  Toson lost the plot, lost all sense of priority, and in my eyes he's a far lesser man for it.  

I choke my way up another hill topped with a pig abattoir, eyes awatering.  The feet are suffering as much as the nose, as I'm wearing heavy winter boots and have seen very little but tarmac.  Luckily there is very little traffic, mainly the odd granny driving very very slow. After close to an hour of this, the path begins to angle out amongst fields again. A school girl walking alone calls a greeting across the paddies.  She appears to live in a single house at the end of the valley.  I wonder what sort of life this is for her, isolated from friends, though she has proven cheerful.

Just beyond the house, I enter the mountains, on forested paths for the first time all day.  I am losing the light, so decide to shoot for the earlier of the two trains I've chosen as my goal for the day.  Once I reach a low pass, I begin a quick, gravity-aided descent down the other side.  I am nearly running, and am thankful that the snakes are asleep (though I did see fresh bear tracks a few days before).  

I allow myself the only rest of the day at the temple in the next valley.  It is open and sunny, but the chill is coming up along with four o'clock.  As I nibble a Clif Bar (a gift from Wes on our last hike, which at the time hadn't been for sale in Japan, but now goes for 2000 yen online!), I note that I have thirty minutes until my train, and 35 minutes of hike left.  Local guide books tend to be quite conservative with hiking times, but the new book I am using is pretty accurate, despite my usual quick pace. Luckily it is downhill to town, and I steeplechase hop a couple of electric boar fences on the way.  The final section cuts across town beside a small river, and somewhere in my haste I lose the trail itself.  No matter, it is near the station; not too far to backtrack next time.  Most importantly, I have a few minutes to spare to buy a canned coffee which I sip on the ride back, wondering why each and every time I walk I end up running for a train at the end.
 

On the turntable:  Coldplay, "X&Y Live 2005"


   

Tokai Shizen Hoedown: Chubu I

Rain begat rain begat rain.  Amazing the precipitation we'd been getting, five, six days a week worth, for the past couple of months.  Rainy season was long over, but nobody had told the rain.  

All of which made Sunday even more glorious.  And a good day for walking.  

I'd thought I was finished with the Tōkai Shizen Hōdō (TSH) when I faced its terminus at Minō falls seven years ago.  But that was before I caught Henrō-byō, which ails most of those who walked the Shikoku pilgrimage.  Rather than return to that (not-so) small island as the stricken usually did, I chose to explore some of Japan's other old paths, and had taken on work where I tried to instill in others the joys of the open road.  Two tours I led took me along multi-day segments of the TSH, and before long I found myself thinking that rather than be satisfied simply with the Kansai section, why not follow it all the way to Tokyo?  

It was in this spirit that I got off the train in Ena.  A festival was in progress, and all the lockers full.   I batted my eyelashes at a middle-aged man in the tourist information office, who let me leave my suitcase with him yet warned me that he would close at 6.  So much for my open-ended day. 

Thankfully taxis were available, so I had one take me to where the TSH diverged from where the Nakasendo carried on into Ena.  I moved quickly downhill, then played leapfrog with a pair of highways.   Before long I found myself thinking that I was walking with different eyes again, that I wouldn't have the usual visual landscape clues that help navigate me along the old feudal roads.  Thankfully the signage was good, far better than it had been a decade before. The recent hiking boom had helped with that.  But one sign worried me in giving a walking time of 70 minutes in order to cover the next 3 km.  A mountain was surely ahead.  

The road rose heading into a small hamlet, and turning my head left I looked into the mouth of the very familiar Kiso Valley, with the tell tale peaks of Mts. Ena and Kiso Komagatake defining its right shoulder. Near a golf course, a handful of cats milled about, probably abandoned.  They certainly had plenty of toys to bat around, as the higanbana spider lilies swayed across every berm.  

The more I drew away from the rail line the more rice fields appeared, their stalks mostly listless and slumped over.  Since this was the first truly sunny weekend day we'd had in weeks, I imagined that a flurry of harvesting was going on, up the length of the country.  The heat of the day was high, 30 or more, a sure sign that yet another storm was building out to sea.  In a month or so, I will surely see a newspaper article about what a disaster the crop had been this year.  Things are  undoubtedly worse in North Korea.  Any time a round of missile tests begin, news about a flood or famine follows close behind.  The US steps in with food aid to quiet things down.  And a few years later, it starts up again.   Yet Abe and his lot are traveling the world, talking up the dangers of the Pyongyang regime, in the hopes of getting assistance of their own.  They know nothing, or perhaps everything, about politics.     

The ache in my muscles took on a subtle shift, and my climb was upon me.  I was surprised that it was ishitatami, above which my shoes tried to find grip on stones slick with lichens and a week's worth of rain.  It was slow going, even more so for the fallen trees. The apparent lack of hikers had me worried that I was on the wrong track, and once I topped out, I read my maps intently, and replenished my energy with a peanut butter sandwich.  Not far on was the site of an old tea house, then the trail passed behind a cattle farm whose stench nearly asphyxiated me as I tried desperately to slow my breathing which had quickened with the climb.  

The trail was arrow straight here, along the top of Mt. Yudachi.  It had been a tough climb to be sure, but not nearly as steep as the infamous Mt. Asadachi.  I quickened my pace along this flat forestry road, trying to make up time.  If the signs were correct, I'd arrive in Iwamura twenty minutes after my intended train pulled out.  Despite the speed I was truly enjoying myself, remembering why I liked the TSH so much, which alternated between quiet forest paths and narrow lanes bisecting hamlets.  It was all far more pleasant than a forced march along overdeveloped roads, with the roar of vehicles rushing past every few seconds.      

A man in the next village turned off his weed-whacker to ask me where I was going.  Unlike a pair of women earlier, he didn't make an explosive sound of surprise at my answer, which led me to believe that I was better than halfway there.  What followed was a few lateral crossings across long flat valleys, and short climbs over stumpy hillocks between.  A stand of kosatsuba proved my suspicions that this too was an old highway, and a bit of Googling later told me that I'd walked the Daimyō Kaidō.  Apparently I'd been in good company.  Kano no Chomei had enshrined 1000 stone Buddhas out here.  Not far away was the grave of Confucian scholar Sato Issai, who probably followed this road home when the Edo period forever closed, an event upon which he had no small impact.

My forced march had brought me to the station a half an hour before my train.  The station was small, with a short platform, and as is rapidly becoming the case with these out-of-the-way stations, the waiting room had been turned into a display of rail days of yore.  Bizarrely, one part of this was housed a small butchery operation, which as well as slinging meat also served take out coffee.  A pair of middle-aged motorcyclists nursed small mugs of beer, which looked too good to resist.  I took mine outside and sat on the platform on an old wooden bench, washing down a potato croquette and enjoying the silence.  But the peace wasn't to last.  Before long, a gaggle of noisy old women showed up, bringing the day to an end with a clamor as profound as the brakes of the train as it shrieked to a stop. 


On the turntable:  The Beatles, "The River Rhine Tapes"
On the nighttable:  George Orwell, "The Clergyman's Daughter"

Out in the Blue

Wes sat out front of Tenri Station, warming himself in the sun.  Someone was sitting beside him, who I thought might be a missionary from this town's eponymous sect of Buddhism, but it turned out to be a farmer, who wanted Wes to commit to nothing more than explaining what he was doing in this remote part of Nara prefecture.  As he and I walked off, a nearby pair of proselytizers kept up their rap, until the closing of the taxi door severed the flow.

I was happy that I was able to propose to Wes a hike that he hadn't yet done, as he has seemingly hiked just about everything in Japan, every step well documented in his web site, Hiking in Japan.  This particular peak of Ryu-ō-zan was for me the final hike in a book on the Tokai Shizen Hōdō, and while the mountain wasn't on the course itself, it promised a pleasant diversion.

Another goal for the day would be a gear test of sorts, as I wanted to see how a couple of new jackets would fare in preparation for a trip to Lapland later in the month.  But the 16 degree skies put an end to that, and inevitably the only thing to get tested was my patience, as a guardman tried to tell us that we couldn't walk through. He wasn't terribly persistent, as we didn't even change stride, not even for the actual workmen further on, who seemed not to see us.

A sign warning us about wild dogs was a brief concern, but they proved to be no obstacle either, probably off sunbathing somewhere.  We arrived unmolested at the first promontory of the day, upon a wide open clearing that had once served as the northern castle keep for the Toochi-clan during the mid-16th Century.  The views beneath the day's clear clear skies inspired, but were topped by the ruins of the slightly higher southern keep a short walk away.  To the south lay Hira and Ibuki, with the Omine peaks far to the south.  Osaka lay at the edge of the eye's reach, backlit by the sun.  Below, the Yamato plain was nocked and grooved with the dormant paddies of winter, their bounty once the source of economy for the great burial tombs that brought imperfection to their straight lines. 

After a quick lunch we made an even quicker descent down past the Fudo-myō statue towering over the stream at Chōgaku-ji's Oku-no-in, then past a shrine for the mountain above, with its warning about dangerous reptiles.  While exploring a slightly overgrown side path we came across the entrance for a seemingly nameless burial mound, one that puzzled as it was halfway up the mountain rather than on the plains as was more common.  As I prepared to enter, Wes warned me about wild boars, but all we found was a bricked up doorway in the darkness.

There were further mysteries on the way down, including well-kept but forbidden side trails, places for aescetic waterfall practice, and some unusually carved Jizo.  Back in the sunshine again, we passed a car that had been driven into an irrigation ditch, and sat a long while in front of a new hiker's center that hadn't been here when I passed through ten years ago.  While that had been hot stroll along a mid-summer Yama-no-be-no-michi, todays' weather was far more pleasant, even as we replicated the walk at a much quicker pace, so quick that I completely missed the burial mound for the legendary shaman-queen Himiko just to the west.

The idea had been to get to Miwa station before the train to grab a coffee.  We were literally racing the clock, and arrived just as my transport home pulled in.   But the day was too nice, the air too warm, so I decided to catch a later one and pick my daughter from school up a few minutes late.  So Wes and I leaned into our respective ergonomic grooves in the trunk of an ancient oak, reminiscing about the days when of youth, when the future was open and ripe for building the civilization that is adulthood. 


On the nighttable:  Ian Buruma,  "Anglomania"
On the turntable:  77, "Revolution Rock" 

Journey through the Past

The weather forecast showed 12 degree temps, which the sunny morning skies confirmed.  I decided to spend the day playing connect the dots.  I had already walked a series of routes down in south Nara prefecture, but subsequent internet fiddling showed me that I had 'eaten the loaf, but left the heels,' if you will.  Where did those routes connect?  A fine day to find out. 

Nothing terribly special to report, as I'd already consumed the tastiest bits.  Nara is world famous for its lengthy history, nearly 1500 years of history, so its no surprise at how lived in the area looks.  Even the newer house look weathered, the older ones hanging on.  There are the odd small blemishes of industry, and the obligatory highways and rail lines, but I like the way the mountains and fields close in to hug everything. In particular the first section of the day, along the eastern reaches of the Yamato Kaidō, as the valley walls grow closer and closer as if to shield its kiss with the Hase Kaidō, a kiss I'd missed on my walking the latter road two years ago. 

Not far away is the junction with the Kami-tsu-michi.  I had thought that I had covered this 2-km elbow of the Ise Hon Kaidō while on a walk of the Tokai Shizen Hodō in 2009,  but the TSH is further up toward the hills, a fact I discover as I sit sunning myself beside Shiroyama Jinja, perusing a series of online websites and refueling on a rice ball and some cold chicken.  The Ise Kaido proper follows the river below, and so now do I.  A handful of children play in its dry bed, two grannies gossip on a bench above.  I criss-cross someone's farm, passing a number of signs pointing toward the seemingly infinite shrines and ruins that dot this, the Yama-no-be Michi, one of my earliest walks in the area, and still one of my favorite walks in Japan.  I move through the village of Miwa, following the shrill sound of a flute to an Hatsu Ebisu festival and its giant red fish omikoshi.  This is an affiliate shrine of nearby Miwa Jingu, where the god of alcohol is deified. I smile at the smaller shrine's eponymous beer, and realize that I have yet to drink that particular brand this year.  Hatsu Yebisu is most definitely called for, but will have to wait, as February is generally a dry month for me.  (Perhaps then, a Super Dry instead?)  A handful of steps away brings me to Miwa Jingu's massive torii, supposedly the tallest in Japan.  Not long after arriving in Japan, knowing that sake is enshrined here, I sat drinking a cup in the shadow of that very gate, watching the sun set over the Katsuragi range.  This gate more or less marks where I had thought I'd finished my walk of the Kami-no-michi in 2014.
But now, my walk of the Ise Kaido can finally be called complete. 

I toast this with a tea and some chocolate, before heading down Route 169, into the heart of Sakurai.  It is a modern road, yet thankfully lined with mom and pop shops rather than box stores.  It never ceases to amaze me just how many beauty salons and eyewear shops there are in Japan.   It is as its citizens want not only the perfect coif, but also the ability to clearly see the perfect coif of everyone else.   (This is where I will insert a snarky quip, saying "for a people so dead set on 20/20 vision, it is amazing how astigmatic is the government's hindsight view, in following the definition found in Merriam-Webster: 'showing incapacity for observation or discrimination.'" Perhaps my own lenses are rose-tinted.) 

The Kami-tsu-Michi is now cut by a rail line and a river, but after a little creative detouring, I am walking the section known locally as the Yamada Kaidō (confused yet?).  It is more or less the rural Route 15, which curves itself toward Kashima Jingu.  The sky clouds over for the first time all day which brings the wind and chill.  Alternately, the mists of time part to reveal the landscape of the sixth century capital Asuka, dotted with dozens of key-shaped burial mounds.  A village, then a town escort me back to the rail-line, which I follow south a few kilometers until I enter the train station. 

This ending will too serve as a beginning.  I have one last road to walk down here, leading from this tomb kingdom of Asuka to the later-era Heijo Palace of Nara, paralleling the temporal progression that marked the transition from newly sedentary hunter gatherers to a more established civilization defined by collective agriculture and a new import --  Buddhism.

No map links per se, due to the nature of the day.  Instead:

On the turntable:  Annie Lennox, "Medusa"
On the nighttable:  John Nathan, "Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere"
  

Hiei-zan, Double Traverse Pt. 1

On the day that I created the blog about the Shizen Hōdō, I realized that I hadn't actually finished the walk.  I'd assumed that I had, in also walking the Kyoto Isshū Trail, which traces the Hōdō as they both wrap around the ancient capital. But one section, a mere hour's worth, still remained untrod.

It took me over three years, but I finally made it up there.  Wes came along on this simple little stroll in the hills, ironic in that he has cheerfully taken on most of the hardest mountaineering that Japan can offer. 

So it was that we got off a bus near the Hotel L'Hiei, our means of transport having done most of the work for us that day.  After ducking into this clean, posh, and empty resort hotel to use the toilet, we quickly find the trail, arrows pointing down that long flight of steps toward Biwa-ko on which I had first made the Hōdō's acquaintance. 

Naturally we head in the opposite direction, along trails that hug the hillside, wrapping around landslides and fallen trees, and thankfully not climbing or falling too dramatically.  It's an easy morning:  cooling our heads in the mouth of a dragon that emits a cool stream of snowmelt; praying before the myriad gods in a cluster of shrines at Myō-dō.

Just beyond is the main temple hall of Enryakuji itself, dark and perfumed by centuries of incense.  But it is the trees up here that most impress.  Due to the devastation wrought by Nobunaga and his men, I date the tallest to just over 400 years old.

The trail leads on, easy and flat as it follows the ridge.  Conversation flows easy as the trail fails to wind us.  There is one particular drop into, then a tough climb out of, a narrow valley at the top of which we pause and snack.  Before us is an area open to the sunlight, brutally clear cut and devoid of nothing but mud, and some surveyor's stakes left behind like sarcastic exclamation points. We stand awhile and look down, our view unobstructed into Shiga-ken.  

The trail I'd hoped to follow continues north along the ridge, but my map shows a climbing time that would extend well past sunset.  Thus resigned, we follow a side trail past a tree trunk with a remarkably well-shaped ass, then shoot down amidst the frogs into the valley and to Ohara.  Here I'm further surprised to find that I hadn't walked this section of the Hōdō either, which we rectify by walking those final few hundred meters past the large homes of suburban farmers who'd found money, and bubble-era coffee shops that had subsequently lost it.  One of the latter attempts to cool us with ice coffee and fresh plucked cherry tomatoes, until the bus finishes the job, double doors pushing air-conditioned air into our faces before taking us in.


On the turntable:   "The Rough Guide to Okinawa"

Tokai Shizen Hoedown Revisited

Last summer, I had planned to sort through the TSH posts and edit them into something of a guide to the hike. But time and life stuff got in the way. I was further urged on by a New Years email from Wes asking for more info. Finally, I got it together.

Most of the posts are the same, with some slight editing. I also tried to fill in the blanks here and there, since I didn't write up the North Kyoto parts that we previously hiked as the Kyoto Isshū Trail. Most importantly, I listed all the resources I used.

Overall, it still reads less like a guide than a cynical travel piece. But, as the only English information out there, I hope it is helpful.

Tokai Shizen Hoedown


On the turntable: "Backbeat" (OST)

Tokai Shizen Hoedown Dance Steps

There isn't much available out there on the Tōkai Shizen Hodō, and nothing that I can find in English. We mainly used this book:

It isn't perfect by any means. It was written in 2000 and many of the routes have changed, especially where they've by overlaid by new suburban houses. Also, the final four sections are missing, with no explanation whatsoever. Better than nothing.

We also relied heavily on this site:

http://www.brachtweb.com/

Mr. Bracht gave good info, especially transportation details to and from the hikes themselves.

This site helped fill in those last remaining blanks:

http://www2r.biglobe.ne.jp/~matuba/toukai/

I recommend parts of this hike, especially the Yamanobe section, where it leaves Uji heading south, before looping back again to Ishiyamadera. The sections closer to Otsu-Kyoto-Osaka have nice pieces, but prepare yourself for lots of concrete. Nara-ken is by far the most atmospheric, with jizo lined trails and well-weathered mountain temples. Happy trails!

(I intend to create a new blog detailing this hike as it is walked geographically, rather than chronologically, as posted here on Notes from the 'Nog.)

On the turntable: "Latcho Drom"

Tokai Shizen Hoedown: Westbound V

Everybody on the train looked exhausted. Granted it was a summertime Friday, but it wasn't yet nine in the morning. Even the school kids, off to some sports event, had their bodies slumped onto one another, a far cry from their frenzied ass-grabbing antics that usually annoys the rest of the commuters. With the grated metal window blinds, the Hankyu car looked like it was transporting cattle.

Miki and I both found ourselves with a rare weekday off, the perfect opportunity to finish the Western end of the TSH. We were pretty careless this time around, no checking of bus schedules as usual, and thus found ourselves stuck for 45 minutes in a bland bedroom town, trying to keep at bay both the heat and the accompanying grumpiness. We finally made it out to the base of Ryuōzan just before lunchtime. Depsite the lighter packs, our legs were still carrying the weight of last week. We walked silently along the trail, through a dead landscape of downed trees, corrogated iron rice fields, and wood shards littering the trail. Yep, we were back in Kansai. Machine cluttered farms lined the trail, above perpetual signs of road work and the industrial metal clang coming from further out in the hills. It was as if the world was a film set being constructed. Passing through a heavy anti-boar gate, we came to a small pond whose surface was nearly covered by lilipads. They formed a triangle not too dissimilar than the shape of our rice balls, bisected by the slight trace of where a duck had recently swum across. A beautiful blue bird perched on a low branch, then had a brief pre-lunch dip.

We found a hamlet next, where an old farmwoman snoozed in the shade and a lizard fell from a sheer stone wall with a 'smack!' A small white truck was parked along the next forest road, with more loud banging just beyond. Intending to gather police evidence, I took a photo of the license plate, switched my camera to video, in order to shoot these men as they dumped their trash. To my surprise, the racket they were making was them instead cleaning the forest. Beyond them, middle-aged couples were filling jugs with water spilling from a forest spring. Here the trail gave us our only climb of the day, which seemed to annoy our calves until they were appeased by the level ridge that followed. It was a straight and narrow path, past massive cemeteries and the odd stones marking bigger, more important men. (Are we truly equal after death?) The trail dropped past a large granite TSH marker sitting before a nature center. And here we lost the trail for the first time. There were quite a few paths with different names, which has been our curse since entering Osaka-fu. We chose the one that seemed to match our guide book, following it up a hill until we saw a sign that pointed back the way we'd come, reading, "Start of Tokai Shizen Hōdō, 0.5 km."

S-say what?

Apparently we'd finished about 2 minutes before at that big grey stone. It was the perfectly ironic way to finish, missing the marker as we had done dozens of times before. But it was a major letdown. After 431 km, over 12 months, there were no hugs, no high fives, no moments of relieved smug satisfaction. Instead, we'd marked the occasion with our all too familiar, where the hell is the trail? It is only in my role as a yoga teacher that I can appreciate the perfection here. How often are we focussed on reaching a goal, getting far more caught up in the idea of finishing than in the appreciation of the process. Just this morning, Miki had said she would've been fine not to complete this walk, and she wondered why I'm so attached to my desire to finish. I wonder that too, actually. Today's walk in particular felt spurred on toward its completion, rather than enjoyed. How poetic then, that when we finished, we weren't actually there.

Profoundly disappointed, we moved along toward Minō Waterfall like a couple of deflated balloons. There we stood in the spray, feeling it on our faces, arms out in supplication...

On the turntable: Chet Baker Trio, "The Touch of your Lips"