{"id":117,"date":"2008-06-25T18:28:33","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T09:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seanmisen.com\/?p=117"},"modified":"2008-06-25T18:28:33","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T09:28:33","slug":"the-asahi-super-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/japan\/the-asahi-super-line\/","title":{"rendered":"The Asahi Super Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

I woke up at 7AM on a Sunday, got on my bike and rode for 12 hours and 140 kilometers.\u00a0 I think that I love maps too much, and I let my imagination control what I attempt to do in reality.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 From the main route to the north to the main route to the south is 86km.\u00a0 The actual super line is less, about 55km.\u00a0 I had scoped out the entrance once by car at night, and once by bike while it was still accessible only by snowmobile.\u00a0 I fully expected it to be open this time.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 Well, I’m not the greatest at reading Japanese, so I just lifted my bike over the gate and started riding.\u00a0 3 or 4 km later, I see this:<\/p>\n

\"Landslide\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After a while, I realized that if the road really was closed completely, then I could be completely alone for the next 55km.\u00a0 At once an exciting and fear-inspiring thought.\u00a0 Strange, I realized, considering the population density I am used to and have experienced regularly.\u00a0 Japan must be getting to me.\u00a0 The road was really nice, winding slowly up, completely to myself, crossing over inlets into the dammed river below.\u00a0 Eventually I got to a bridge that was completely blocked off with bars on the opposite end.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 At this point, another road from Oguni connected up to the main Super Line, and I saw two cars.<\/p>\n

\"Lake<\/a><\/p>\n

12 or 13 km later, though, another “Road Closed” sign.\u00a0 Hop.\u00a0 Monkeys.\u00a0 Lots of monkeys.\u00a0 Monkeys with hanging babies and dangling red parts.\u00a0 Screaming monkey profanity.\u00a0 Up.\u00a0 And up.\u00a0 14 km to the prefectural border.\u00a0 Intuition told me that the prefectural border would be the pass, since watershed boundaries often determine prefectural borders in Japan.\u00a0 That meant down.\u00a0 Came across some more “Road Closed” signs, confusingly, considering there were additional ones on either side.\u00a0 Passed some long-abandoned campsites, and some recently used construction vehicles.\u00a0 2300 feet, Prefectural border.\u00a0 Gravel.\u00a0 Shitty gravel.\u00a0 Rockslide basketball-rock gravel. \u00a0 Started walking.\u00a0 For the next 15km.\u00a0 Saw a guy in a little Kei-car gathering mountain vegetables.\u00a0 Asked him “Is this the way to Yamagata?”\u00a0 Dumb question.\u00a0 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?!?!?”\u00a0 I was running low on water, and ended up drinking from a waterfall by the side of the road.\u00a0 Eventually, the gravel shit gave way to pavement.\u00a0 For 400 meters. \u00a0Crud.\u00a0 I started riding on the gravel, praying every second that my tires would hold.\u00a0 I was a long, long walk from any cell reception or help.\u00a0 Bless ’em, they did.\u00a0 Kenda Kwests.\u00a0 Again, pavement.\u00a0 Sweeeeeet pavement.\u00a0 Speed.\u00a0 Then a monstrous rockslide!\u00a0 Huge!\u00a0 Seriously stood there for 15 seconds wondering what to do.\u00a0 Up and over.\u00a0 End of the Asahi Super Line.\u00a0 But 25 km to the next main national route, and 50km total to Tsuruoka, from where it was probably 90-100km back to Murakami.\u00a0 It wasn’t happening.\u00a0 I made good time back to Tsuruoka though, probably averaging 30kph for a good two hours.\u00a0 Alas, it wasn’t enough.\u00a0 I was almost deliriously exhausted, and the sun was setting.\u00a0 I called my co-worker Chris, who drove my car up to Atsumi Onsen and picked me up around 7 o’clock.<\/p>\n

A fun ride, and a great story to make Japanese people fall out of their chairs.\u00a0 But super?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The Asahi Super Destroyed Gravel Path is far more apt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up at 7AM on a Sunday, got on my bike and rode for 12 hours and 140 kilometers.\u00a0 I think that I love maps too much, and I let my imagination control what I attempt to do in reality.\u00a0 The Asahi Super Line is a mountain road that begins about 15km away to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}