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We decided to leave the evening before in order to make as early a start as possible. Driving through Tokyo in the early evening was a pleasure, with Omotesando providing ample opportunities to view girls sporting the latest spring fashions. Sadly I was messing around with my camera and only ended up getting some random blurry shots.
We hit the access road early and were ready to hike shortly after six. On the approach I took a fancy to the S-shaped gully on looker's left. I imagined it as a giant halfpipe but needless to say my sense of scale was completely out of whack with it being much larger when we finally got there.
Peeping out of the forest
From the trailhead:
Traversing across we soon got to skinning, the icy surface providing some initial diffiulties before the morning sun did its good work. Knowing that Dan is a skinning and bootpacking machine, whenever we took a brief break I made sure to get going again a couple of minutes ahead of the others to give myself a little breathing room. I knew that I would be overtaken before long but it was a pretty good strategy for me to feel that I wasn't holding him up too badly. It was only Tsondaboy's second attempt at skinning (on a splitboard) but there was no hesitation in acknowledging that it was far superior to using snowshoes.
Start of the journey
Dan on my tail
I'm overtaken already...
Splitboard action
Just above 3,000m we began to encounter more icy conditions with some tiresome switchbacking across a chute bordered by rocky ridges. At this point we decided to switch to bootpacking. Tsondaboy didn't fancy his chances of an enjoyable descent after lugging his board around on his back, and decided to head down. I guess skis do rule after all.
Dan and I pressed on. I was a little unprepared for how tiring bootpacking would prove to be at elevation, to say the least. For the first hundred metres or so, it felt like my skis were being pulled towards the centre of the earth (well obviously they were thanks to our friend gravity, but you know what I mean), and I found myself scrambling on hands and knees more than a couple of times despite the relatively gentle gradient.
Clouds close on our tails
As the gradient began to gradually increase and the ice crust slickened, Dan attempted to buoy my spirits by informing me that the horizon ahead of us was the summit. I knew that this was not true, and he admitted that he had just been trying to encourage me later on, but I appreciated the gesture. There was no thought in my mind of turning around, but it's always nice to feel that you are actually getting close to the goal! At this point I was happy to be able to switch to boot crampons. The previous day I had wondered whether I really need buy them or if in fact I was just being a needless gear whore, but they turned out to be an excellent purchase. At points the ice became so sheer that I had to break trail for Dan (who had no crampons), although to be honest I'm not sure that the sparrow-like imprints left by my unsteady steps really provided much in the way of assistance. Anyway, we pressed on for the gap in the rock band that would be our next rest point.
So far...
Keep going!
Almost there
Upon arrival I was stunned to find out that we had both been wrong - it had in fact been the summit crater. I was pretty relieved as the almost 3,800m altitude was definitely starting to have an effect on my sea-level body, each step proving to be a serious effort. The last stretch had been much, much harder than aniticipated, but that just made the arrival all the more satisfying. Dan, fresh from a few weeks at altitude in Hakuba, didn't seem particularly bothered by the height and provided a further nice surprise by pulling out a summit beer.
Made it!
Cheers!
Beer on altitude sickness... not as tasty as it should have been...
As I really wasn't feeling so great we decided to head down sooner rather than later. It was amazing how quickly my vigour returned within a couple of minutes of starting the descent as we lost hard-earned altitude. The snow at the top was extremely icy and riding over the wind formations felt like taking a ride down a dirt road in a car with no suspension. Soon enough though things softened up with occasional pockets of wind-packed powder on the upper stretches and consistent perfect corn down below. The clouds that had been trailing us up the mountain had cleared as we summited, allowing continuous views of the distant Japan Alps as we descended. Submerged rocks provided a custom slalom course as we neared the end of the line, but serious damage was avoided.
Launch Dan!
Launch KOM!
Doing what we came to do, with views of the Japan Alps!
When we got to the bottom, we realised we had been making a huge mistake all along. Some people never learn.
Although it isn't the toughest mountain in the world it was big achievement for me and I felt great all the way home. Dan's energy finally ran out and he was quieter than me for once! Thanks guys for a great trip!
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