Category: travel

Over the three day weekend, I climbed Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan at 3,776 meters (12,388 feet).  It is said that you really must climb it once, but if you climb it twice or more, you are pretty much crazy.  That never made sense to me, since mountains are fun to climb, and it’s a lot of fun to climb a nice one during different seasons and different weather.  We’d all be idiots if we never climbed Lazy or the Butte more than once.  After climbing it, I don’t really agree with this in general.  Fuji was a nice mountain with a well-maintained trail and a beautiful view from the top.  However, I must say that if you choose to climb the mountain during the official season, you are an idiot.  Along with all of the other idiots climbing it.  Holy crap.  There were so many people, especially after the Subashiri trail that we took met up with the more popular Kawaguchi-ko trail at the 8th station.  Imagine 300 people crammed in a small yellow-lit rock-strewn clearing 10,000 feet up a mountain all clambering to hike their way up a narrow trail.  Now imagine that 90% of these people are either over 65 years old or are in groups and can’t think for themselves.  It’s about the most enraging, annoying situation that I can imagine having while climbing a mountain, and about the wrongest, dumbest way to do so.  I was moving slow, pacing myself, and I was passing hundreds of people who were all slaves to the group.  I love Japan, but this situation really made me hate the group aspect of the culture.  Mountain climbing is about being with nature, about being spontaneous, and free, about being ALONE!  It’s not about whatever the hell that all was.

However.  The sunrise from the top was beautiful.

And the hike down was a blast; a loose pumice trail straight down the side of the mountain below 9,000 feet. We made it from the 12,000 foot peak to the parking lot at 6,000 feet in 90 minutes.  I had several handfuls of dirt and rocks in both boots.  It was great!  It felt great to say ‘screw you’ to all the slowpokes up there.

So, I would recommend climbing Fuji on a weekday during the end of the season, perhaps in September, and I would recommend doing it with friends.

Or, you could take a cue from Brandon Germer, and do it alone, dangerously, in February.

I woke up at 7AM on a Sunday, got on my bike and rode for 12 hours and 140 kilometers.  I think that I love maps too much, and I let my imagination control what I attempt to do in reality.  The Asahi Super Line is a mountain road that begins about 15km away to the east, near a few dams and some completely uninhabited mountain terrain.  From the main route to the north to the main route to the south is 86km.  The actual super line is less, about 55km.  I had scoped out the entrance once by car at night, and once by bike while it was still accessible only by snowmobile.  I fully expected it to be open this time.  I arrived at the beginning of the road around 8:30 after a pit stop, to find a closed gate and a sign saying “Road Closed: Landslide.”  Well, I’m not the greatest at reading Japanese, so I just lifted my bike over the gate and started riding.  3 or 4 km later, I see this:

After a while, I realized that if the road really was closed completely, then I could be completely alone for the next 55km.  At once an exciting and fear-inspiring thought.  Strange, I realized, considering the population density I am used to and have experienced regularly.  Japan must be getting to me.  The road was really nice, winding slowly up, completely to myself, crossing over inlets into the dammed river below.  Eventually I got to a bridge that was completely blocked off with bars on the opposite end.  I was able to take off the gear from my bike and very carefully lift it up and over with one hand while balancing on a rung with my foot and, with my hand through the bars, lower it down on the opposite side.  At this point, another road from Oguni connected up to the main Super Line, and I saw two cars.

12 or 13 km later, though, another “Road Closed” sign.  Hop.  Monkeys.  Lots of monkeys.  Monkeys with hanging babies and dangling red parts.  Screaming monkey profanity.  Up.  And up.  14 km to the prefectural border.  Intuition told me that the prefectural border would be the pass, since watershed boundaries often determine prefectural borders in Japan.  That meant down.  Came across some more “Road Closed” signs, confusingly, considering there were additional ones on either side.  Passed some long-abandoned campsites, and some recently used construction vehicles.  2300 feet, Prefectural border.  Gravel.  Shitty gravel.  Rockslide basketball-rock gravel.   Started walking.  For the next 15km.  Saw a guy in a little Kei-car gathering mountain vegetables.  Asked him “Is this the way to Yamagata?”  Dumb question.  Later, as the road deteriorated into the Super Line that Time Forgot and Knocked Rocks on and Planted Trees in and Turned into a River, I became less and less sure of myself and I realized I should have asked him “How the hell did you get here?!?!?”  I was running low on water, and ended up drinking from a waterfall by the side of the road.  Eventually, the gravel shit gave way to pavement.  For 400 meters.  Crud.  I started riding on the gravel, praying every second that my tires would hold.  I was a long, long walk from any cell reception or help.  Bless ’em, they did.  Kenda Kwests.  Again, pavement.  Sweeeeeet pavement.  Speed.  Then a monstrous rockslide!  Huge!  Seriously stood there for 15 seconds wondering what to do.  Up and over.  End of the Asahi Super Line.  But 25 km to the next main national route, and 50km total to Tsuruoka, from where it was probably 90-100km back to Murakami.  It wasn’t happening.  I made good time back to Tsuruoka though, probably averaging 30kph for a good two hours.  Alas, it wasn’t enough.  I was almost deliriously exhausted, and the sun was setting.  I called my co-worker Chris, who drove my car up to Atsumi Onsen and picked me up around 7 o’clock.

A fun ride, and a great story to make Japanese people fall out of their chairs.  But super?  The only thing extraordinary about the Asahi Super Line (other than the lovely nature and views) is the extent to which the road fails to live up to its name.  The Asahi Super Destroyed Gravel Path is far more apt.