We had a three-day weekend, so one of Matt's teachers took us "hiking" on a "mountain" on Sunday. It's lucky we chose Sunday so we could rest on Monday, because I'm currently nursing the worst sunburn I've had since childhood, and Matt torqued up his knees pretty badly. Maybe in another few days I won't be such a lobster, and Matt will be able to walk normally again. Are we old? At 28, I don't think so... especially since we lift weights, run, dance, walk and ride bikes all over Japan. Before moving out of Colorado, we routinely went for weekend hikes all over the Rockies without much trouble. Okay, first trouble: we didn't have good hiking shoes. The whole indoor/outdoor only shoe thing here makes it impossible to wear shoes for various purposes, so we couldn't wear our sneakers with much better treads, we had to wear our outdoor pumas. Those are slippery! Second trouble: the sun is so strong here! Even with 50 spf, I burned so badly. That never happened on hikes in CO.
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| Matt and me at No. 1 (of 10). |
We started our 6,000 meter climb on slick mud and stone, but in shade. I knew this didn't bode well for coming back down, but at this point I wasn't really thinking about it seriously. I was still interested in the mountain and its possibilities. It wasn't very difficult to make it to the first "checkpoint." We emerged on a field and into a freakish amount of sun for about 9:30 in the morning. Elevation: 420 meters. We applied sunscreen, drank some water, and began the next phase.
Unfortunately, it's the next phase that sealed my sunburned fate, and exhausted our muscles for the remainder of the trip. It was a straight hill climb for a good half-hour, at probably a 40 degree angle. I actually had to walk backwards for some of it to take the pressure off my muscles. We got a brief shady respite at the number 2 marker. I thought, OK, we've done the hill, now we get to the mountain part!
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| No. 3, in the prairie. |
Well, no. Think again. Although lovely, with cotton clouds and wavy grasses, we were walking up a prairie hill. It hurt, it was hot, and unrelenting in terms of incline. Around this time we were starting to understand just how different hiking was here in this area of Japan than in CO, and we weren't too happy about it. I was starting to get a little worried about all the loose rocks for the way back down, also. (Trail maintenance? Not in Japan.) Due to our unbelievable masochism, we kept on.
Nothing much happened on the way to checkpoint 4. More hill, more prairie, more sun, more muscle complaining. By 4, we'd apparently climbed to 800 meters high, but I don't know how much of the 6,000 meters course we'd done. Matt's teacher was bullied into this shot by a woman who insisted on taking our picture as a group. He was, for the most part, very nice, although he did have a habit of making fun of Matt if he misspoke some Japanese. Also, on the way up, Matt and I would have preferred to travel faster and get out of the sun, but we held back for his teacher. On the way down, our shoes wouldn't allow us to go fast (and we both still fell a bit), but his teacher went whole sections down before us. Cultural difference much?
By checkpoint 5, things were starting to become more rocky and less muddy, but still super sunny. Yes, we put on more sunblock, like we'd been doing all day (not that it helped). I said "buck up" to my muscles, which were complaining because of dance class the day before, and we went on.
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| Getting tired by No. 6. |
You can see from the picture to the left just how pastoral the entire scene is, if you can't tell from all the shots of us near the markers that are in front of tall grasses. Our view down was onto rolling hills of farms with other, similarly pastoral, mountains in the background. We reached number 6 and at least I was ready to collapse. I think perhaps the sunburn was setting in by this point, although I (thankfully) didn't turn pink until I got home much later.
Number 7 brought pretty purple flowers with interesting petals. The vegetation barely changed from the bottom of the mountain to the top, which is a new one on us since in CO there are drastic changes due to the incredible elevation differences. But this did show up about halfway up the mountain.
It's difficult to see in this small of a picture, so I advise you click to expand and view the scenery in full. There's a little fortress-like hut on a rock in the middle of the frame, and lake Biwa in the top of the frame. That was probably the coolest part of the whole hike for me, seeing lake Biwa in its glory, with clouds hanging over it. Below is a picture of the view I took in the vicinity of this elevation. Again, I'd advise enlarging it to truly appreciate the expansiveness of the lake. We're so happy at the checkpoint because there's only 2 more to go!
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| No. 9 is where now? |
Between number 8 and the top it turned into hand-scrabbling. We were happy because it took a lot of pressure off our legs to use our arms for a bit too, and when you're hand-scrabbling your body has to be differently aligned so you use different muscles all-around. We sped past where checkpoint 9 was supposed to be, and clambered our way up to the "summit."
Tired, sore, and unknowingly burned, we made it to an elevation of 1,377 meters. It was completely cloudy, which is why the picture is so gray. I guess that's impressive: we climbed above the tree line and into the clouds. The way down was a death trap though. We slid down 6,000 meters of loose rock and mud. My knees were killing me until I finally hit solid ground, then instantly the pain subsided. My poor muscles had been freaking out trying to keep me steady! I had to conclude that part of my difficulty had been the poor condition of the trail, combined with the tendency of Japanese people to herd each other like cattle up and down the mountain. Where was the fun of stopping to look at scenery or flowers? In America, that's the point of hiking. I can't wait to get back to the gorgeous, well-maintained trails and hiking etiquette of the Rockies.
We started our 6,000 meter climb on slick mud and stone, but in shade. I knew this didn't bode well for coming back down, but at this point I wasn't really thinking about it seriously. I was still interested in the mountain and its possibilities. It wasn't very difficult to make it to the first "checkpoint." We emerged on a field and into a freakish amount of sun for about 9:30 in the morning. Elevation: 420 meters. We applied sunscreen, drank some water, and began the next phase.
Unfortunately, it's the next phase that sealed my sunburned fate, and exhausted our muscles for the remainder of the trip. It was a straight hill climb for a good half-hour, at probably a 40 degree angle. I actually had to walk backwards for some of it to take the pressure off my muscles. We got a brief shady respite at the number 2 marker. I thought, OK, we've done the hill, now we get to the mountain part!
Well, no. Think again. Although lovely, with cotton clouds and wavy grasses, we were walking up a prairie hill. It hurt, it was hot, and unrelenting in terms of incline. Around this time we were starting to understand just how different hiking was here in this area of Japan than in CO, and we weren't too happy about it. I was starting to get a little worried about all the loose rocks for the way back down, also. (Trail maintenance? Not in Japan.) Due to our unbelievable masochism, we kept on.
By checkpoint 5, things were starting to become more rocky and less muddy, but still super sunny. Yes, we put on more sunblock, like we'd been doing all day (not that it helped). I said "buck up" to my muscles, which were complaining because of dance class the day before, and we went on.
You can see from the picture to the left just how pastoral the entire scene is, if you can't tell from all the shots of us near the markers that are in front of tall grasses. Our view down was onto rolling hills of farms with other, similarly pastoral, mountains in the background. We reached number 6 and at least I was ready to collapse. I think perhaps the sunburn was setting in by this point, although I (thankfully) didn't turn pink until I got home much later.
Number 7 brought pretty purple flowers with interesting petals. The vegetation barely changed from the bottom of the mountain to the top, which is a new one on us since in CO there are drastic changes due to the incredible elevation differences. But this did show up about halfway up the mountain.
It's difficult to see in this small of a picture, so I advise you click to expand and view the scenery in full. There's a little fortress-like hut on a rock in the middle of the frame, and lake Biwa in the top of the frame. That was probably the coolest part of the whole hike for me, seeing lake Biwa in its glory, with clouds hanging over it. Below is a picture of the view I took in the vicinity of this elevation. Again, I'd advise enlarging it to truly appreciate the expansiveness of the lake. We're so happy at the checkpoint because there's only 2 more to go!
Between number 8 and the top it turned into hand-scrabbling. We were happy because it took a lot of pressure off our legs to use our arms for a bit too, and when you're hand-scrabbling your body has to be differently aligned so you use different muscles all-around. We sped past where checkpoint 9 was supposed to be, and clambered our way up to the "summit."
Tired, sore, and unknowingly burned, we made it to an elevation of 1,377 meters. It was completely cloudy, which is why the picture is so gray. I guess that's impressive: we climbed above the tree line and into the clouds. The way down was a death trap though. We slid down 6,000 meters of loose rock and mud. My knees were killing me until I finally hit solid ground, then instantly the pain subsided. My poor muscles had been freaking out trying to keep me steady! I had to conclude that part of my difficulty had been the poor condition of the trail, combined with the tendency of Japanese people to herd each other like cattle up and down the mountain. Where was the fun of stopping to look at scenery or flowers? In America, that's the point of hiking. I can't wait to get back to the gorgeous, well-maintained trails and hiking etiquette of the Rockies.
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