First Snow on Ontakesan

Thanks to everyone for the photos!

This past weekend, Keiko and I organized a backpacking trip with friends from the Kansai and Tokyo outdoor clubs. From Kanto, Yves (Swiss, living in Yokohama) and Fuyuko (from Yamanashi) joined us, while Kansai folks included Yukari (from Kyoto), Yuri (from Kobe), and Carmel (Irish, living in Kobe). Richard (German), my friend from San Francisco, also joined us.


We climbed Ontakesan 御岳山, on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures. The eight of us met at Kisofukushima station 木曽福島駅, and took taxis to the top of the road on the east side of the mountain at Naka-no-yu 中の湯, altitude about 1800 m. This is knows as the mountain's fifth station 五号目. There we packed up our gear and headed up the steep trail through woods of bamboo grass 熊笹, cypress 檜, and fir モミの木. The maples 紅葉 were just starting to turn colorful for the autumn.

Upon reaching the mountains's sixth station 六号目 at 2100 m elevation, tall vegetation gave way to scrub and another scattered tree that was either white birch 白樺 or beech ブナ, which I don't know how to distinguish. Along with being the threshold of tall vegetation, the sixth station also marked the location where, up until the Meiji dynasty 明治時代 of the late 19th century, women were not allowed to climb above, as such was said to have made the mountain's diety angry. Only male pilgrims were allowed to climb higher, in order to pay homage to their patron spirit.

After lunching at the sixth station, we climbed higher up the mountain's flank in fair weather and blue skies, enjoying views of the Alps surrounding us. After an hour of hiking, however, at about 2:30pm, the weather turned, and we were caught in the mountain's 初雪, the first snow of the year. We were prepared with appropriate clothing and gear, so it was an enjoyable and beautiful, if cold, scene. Above about 2500 m altitude, scrub vegetation gave way to a barren landscape of bare rocks, most of which were of obviously volcanic origin, pumice with rough edges that had sometime in history been ejected forcefully from the caldera of the sleeping volcano that is Ontakesan. We pushed on through the snow and cold to an emergency shelter 避難小屋 on the summit ridge, at about 2800 m altitude, built beside a shrine to the mountain's dieties.


Being a bunch of cheap folks, we decided to spend the night in the emergency shelter, rather than spring the 5000 Yen each for the luxurious lodge that was half an hour walk from the shelter. The shelter really wasn't a bad structure, however; apart from a lack of heating, it was a lodge unto itself, though unstaffed. Using our camp stoves and the food and water we lugged up the mountain, we cooked a savory pasta dinner in the shelter, lined up like sardines on the wooden deck floor in our sleeping bags, and let pass a peaceful yet chilly night, with the wind howling outside at -15 degrees C, and even the inside of the structure dropping a few degrees below freezing despite the 15 or so folks inside to keep it warm. As usual, I was running a few degrees above everyone else, so enjoyed washing my face with snow, and "chilled out" outdoors for a while to admire the starry sky, where even the Milky Way 天の川 was starkly visible in the clear night sky after the snowstorm ended. I even saw a shooting star 流れ星 near the horizon.


The morning held a beautiful sunrise in chilly skies that were alternately clear and foggy.

By 7am, the fog had succumbed to the heat of the sun, the skies remained clear, and we were able to see our savior shelter, its patron Shinto priest, and the shrine's bell.


The ice coating all the structures and the rare scrub glistened in the morning sun.


Views of the mountain opened up. We could see some of the summit's crater lakes with a backdrop of the surrounding Alps. Even Mt. Fuji 富士山 was visible on the horizon. What a wonderfully clear and cool morning it was!


We scrambled on up to the 3067 m summit shrine by noon, refilled our water bottles, and lunched there with hot water supplied by the friendly staff of the summit lodge.



Then began our afternoon descent down to about 2000 m on the mountain's south ridge. In clear, warm weather, we descended through rocky volcanic wasteland, then scrub and white birch, then coniferous and bamboo grass forest to ToNoHara 田の原, a plateau with souvenier shops that also functions at the base of a ski area in wintertime. There we caught a bus to a local onsen 温泉, and then to a campsite, where the Kansai folks cooked up spicy mushroom pasta before another peaceful (and not so cold) night under the stars.

The next day we took an easy hike to Kiyotaki 清滝 and Shintaki 新滝, two waterfalls in forests on the moutnain's south flank. Both are religious (Shinto) areas, where pilgrims absolve themselves under the beating cold water of the falls.



Places where groundwater seeps to the surface as springs are regarded as holy here, and also have shrines built around them for those seeking purification.


Prayer bells about in the shrines around the waterfalls and all over Ontake-san. Their sounds reverbrate for a while after being struck. I tried to time just how long the sound was audible.

In the early afternoon, we all caught a bus back to Kisofukushima, where we lunched on hot udon at a cafeteria next to the station. Then all the lovely Kansai gals boarded their train to the west, leaving us lonely boys to wait for our eastbound train back to Tokyo.