Hike to Karasawa

Toyohashi Alpine Club
Mountaineering in Japan

Karasawa Cirque

August 9, 2022
North Alps, Japan
Party: Darren DeRidder, Iain Williams
Report by: Darren DeRidder

Karasawa Cirque looking towards Kita-hotaka-dake

"I wonder if that's the last time I will see that view", said Iain behind me. Turning around, I saw Kappabashi bridge, the Azusa river and the walls of Mt. Myojin rising up into the clouds. It really is a beautiful view. The gateway to the North Alps; starting point of so many good memories.  "Nope", I replied, "Sorry, but you've got to come back and finish that route!"

This was the second time we'd tried to climb the north ridge of Maehotaka-daka and been put off by the weather, and I'd like to think that we'll eventually be able to tick that route off our list.  But Iain's question caught me off guard, a little.  It's hard to believe, but it's been nearly 30 years (thirty years!) since I first came here, and back then I didn't think about a "last time" for anything. Now decades later that perspective has changed.  Who knows if, or when, we'll be back. I certainly hope we'll get back here again, both of us, and climb our route or something similar to it. The Kita Alps are one of my all-time favourite places in Japan, and simply being there and getting the old hiking legs back into action rekindled a love for being in the mountains that has been laying dormant for several years as family and other activities took precedence over climbing trips. I might not climb at the same level, with the same speed, or with the same level of risk that I used to in my 20's, but there's an awful lot of great climbing at moderate grades still to be done. And who am I kidding, I only ever climbed relatively safe and moderate climbs anyway.

This trip came together somewhat unexpectedly when I got the news, just the day before leaving for a two-month trip to Japan, that Iain had decided to go to Japan as well for 2 week in August. When he realized that his trip coincided with the O-Bon holidays we decided to go as early as possible after his arrival up to the North Alps to try and beat the rush. Scheduling required juggling some work responsibilities on my part, because of an "on-call" schedule, which has never been part of any previous software engineering job I have done, and which I have decided I really don't like and won't be part of any future job.

After meeting with our families in Kyoto on Sunday (7th August 2022), and spending a very hot day walking around some of the tourist areas, on Monday Iain and I took the Shinkansen to Nagoya and then the Tokaido/Takayama line up to Takayama, enjoying views along the way. Once in Takayama we dropped our luggage at the hotel, a new and impressive facility conveniently located right next to the station, and then spent an afternoon wandering around an old and very picturesque part of the town, although like everywhere else in Japan this summer, it was awfully hot.  My hiking boots were uncomfortable in the heat and I quickly saw the wisdom of Iain's sandals, so we found a small climbing shop (Kong) and had a look around, but I failed to find any sandals in my size. I would just have to endure hot feet and appreciate not having to carry the extra weight of boots in my pack.

The hotel in Takayama gave us a good jumping off point to be able to get to Kamikochi and hike up to the Karasawa cirque in a day, from where we planned to climb the north ridge of Maehotaka-dake.  We left Takayama on the bus to Hirayu Onsen about 9:30 AM -- a bit late but it got us to Kamikochi around 11:30 AM which we thought was plenty of time.  

But en-route to Hirayu-onsen

Kamikochi bus terminal

We did a last-minute gear-sort on the picnic tables next to the Visitor Center in Kamikochi, and I grabbed some fresh water from the faucets there. I took a quick peek inside as well, where I once again saw the bulletin board featuring the "10 Highest Mountains" in Japan which lists one peak that is not in the "Hiking in Japan" guidebook by Paul Hunt.  It lists Mt. Obami somewhere near the bottom of the list, but it seems highly debatable as to whether this peak really qualifies as a mountain on its own, or is just a subsidiary peak. It is essentially just one of the bumps along the ridge below the summit of Yari-ga-take.

Notice board in the Kamikochi Visitors Center

Gearing up in Kamikochi

The Kamikochi trail-head

Myojin peak en-route from Kamikochi

It was a bit of a dilemma whether to take my new trekking poles; I didn't want them to get in the way during technical climbing sections, but I also knew I'd be happy for them if we descended down the steep Dakesawa route. In the end I decided to leave them behind to cut down on the amount of stuff. For climbing gear we had our harnesses, helmets, a selection of slings in the 160cm - 240cm range for belays plus a few smaller ones, a couple of prussik cords, about 8 quick-draws (including a few "alpine" draws with extendable slings), Iain's 8mm 60M rope, a set of nuts, a Friend in the commonly-used #3 size range, a couple of large-ish hexes, belay devices and a couple of locking carabiners each. 

After leaving a couple of bags at the luggage storage counter and depositing our "trekking itinerary" form at the Technical Information desk in the visitor's centre, we were off, departing Kamikochi at right around noon. Incidentally, these trekking itinerary forms are now legally required by Nagano prefecture police, and you can get fined for not doing them. Most people apparently submit them online using a website called Compass, but I couldn't figure out how to use the web application which was in Japanese.  The paper form was in both English and Japanese and simply asks where you plan to go, and whether you have the essentials with you. The old gentleman at the Technical Information desk where I handed in the itinerary was delighted to meet a foreigner who could speak Japanese (albeit far from perfectly), and he was even more impressed that I had filled out the hiking form. He saw that we had a rope and was quite excited when he heard our plans to climb Maeho's north ridge, giving us a big thumbs up.

It was refreshingly cool in Kamikochi, and the fresh breeze as we walked along the wide easy trail beside the river was heavenly after weeks spent sweltering on the Kansai plains.  We soon passed Myojinkan, the climbers hostel where I had stayed a couple of times before. Not long after that we passed by the turn-off to Tokugo-toge Pass, which Iain reminded me was once a high mountain pass that cattle were taken over in the summer and brought down to our current location to graze in the riverside meadows. I believe this bit of information is something Iain got from reading early accounts of the area by Walter Weston and other early British visitors to the area, in the excellent library of the Alpine Club in London (by which I mean "the" Alpine Club, the original, British, hard-to-get-into one). This was also the route that Iain and I had decided to climb back in 2011 when we had come here with the same goal of climbing the North Ridge on Maehotaka-dake only to find the weather to be cloudy and drizzling.  On that trip we had slogged up to the Tokugo-toge pass where we stayed in a small climbers hut and were rewarded with a meal of steak, prawns, and beer as part of a work-party celebration that was going on when we got there. I can't believe it's taken us this long to come back here (11 years). Life happens; I have a lovely daughter who means more to me than all the mountains put together, and taking a break from mountain climbing to be the family man has been worth it.

Junction to Tokugo-toge Pass

Signs warning of land-slides on the Tokugo-toge trail

We made good time all the way to Tokusawa-en, arriving at 1:20pm. There we stopped for some lunch and a soft ice cream cone and I took the rope from Iain. At this point I discovered I had left an onigiri (rice ball) in my stored luggage back in Kamikochi, as well as Iain's coffee satchets, much to his chagrin.  I had plenty of other food with me in the form of calorie bars, chocolate etc. so I was more concerned about the rice ball making my stuff in storage smell bad. 

Easy trail to along the Azusa river

Tokusawa hut

Leaving Tokusawa at 1:55pm, we wanted to take the Panorama Route over to Karasawa but when we arrived at the turn-off it was blocked off with a sign in Japanese that seemed to indicate the route was closed. Knowing that Japanese people tend to be pretty rigid about things being closed for sometimes strange reasons, we debated going anyway, but the trail was indeed looking a bit overgrown so we headed back across the bridge where we'd come from and continued up towards Yoko Sanso.  The trail in this area was bifurcated and quite oddly had a large section where land-works were being constructed with heavy machinery. Walking along a gravel bar I stopped and chatted with a girl who had the look of a local and was coming from the other direction, and asked about the Panorama Course. She mentioned something about it being closed due to snow, which I found very strange and not at all believable, because snow simply does not persist through August at those elevations.

We kept the pace going pretty well, chatting occasionally and stopping once when a troupe of monkeys gathered on the path ahead of us. They weren't at all interested in us as we strolled past. It was the first time I had seen Japanese Macaque monkeys so close, and I found it fascinating and a little scary to pass by so close to them.

Crossing to find the Panorama Route (closed)

Monkeys on the trail

Yokoo-sanso

We arrived at Yoko Sanso at 2:24pm and carried on across a bridge and began the long ascent up into the Karasawa Cirque. Anyone who has hiked up to Karasawa this way knows that the path gets increasingly steeper as the elevation gets higher. The last kilometer or two up the hut are a lot like climbing an unrelenting stairway and with a pack on it becomes a mind-numbing slog. Around 3:35pm about half-way along the slog up this valley we crossed another wire suspension bridge where we took a few photos before shouldering our packs for the final push up to the hut. Iain began saying at this point that he didn't think we would make the hut by 5pm, a statement which caused me some concern as I had been told we needed to check in by 4pm in less than half an hour.  I determined to push on thinking we'll get there when we get there.  I didn't even dare look up at the path ahead because it was too depressing, so I put my head down and just kept putting one foot in front of the other. At around 4:30pm I made it to a signposted gully called "S Gully". I passed one or two others on their way up to the hut, glad not to be the only straggler.

Mountain walls en-route to Karasawa

Last bridge before the final push

Last bridge before the final push

Steep trail up to Karasawa

The "S Gully"

Eventually, I heard conversation from above, climbed the final steep steps on the trail and made it up to the Karasawa Hyutte at 5:07pm where I quickly checked in.  Iain followed shortly after, having paused for a moment where the tail splits, going one way to the Karasawa Goya (hut) and the other to Karasawa Hyutte (also hut), both separated by a boulder-strewn camping area in between.  He guessed correctly that we were in the Hyutte.  We completed the hike up to Karasawa in the 5 to 5-1/2 hour range against a "map time" of 6 hours and 10 minutes. I had beaten the map time by a good hour despite our detour to the (closed) Panorama Route trailhead. If it wasn't for that detour I probably could have made the hike in about 4 and a half hours. Not carrying camping gear certainly helped. The size of some of the packs I saw on the trail looked truly agonizing. We had no intention of lugging camping gear and supplies on this climb; I think those days might be behind me. I'm sure there are people who carry a tent, stove, climbing gear and everything else with them, and climb the north ridge of Maehotakadake with all of that weight strapped to their backs, but I didn't intend to be one of them.

Karasawa Hyutte

Iain arriving at Karasawa Hyutte

It turns out that when we had not shown up by 4pm the hut called the number on file, which reached my wife in Himeji. A couple of hours previously we had been at Tokusawa eating soft ice cream, and I had sent her a picture of myself since the lodge conveniently provided a hotspot of cellular data access. My wife told the hut people we had been at Tokusawa earlier that afternoon and were on our way, to which they replied we must be close and they would wait for us. Incidentally, for my trip in Japan I used an eSim to get affordable local cellular data access, which is extremely affordable compared to the exorbitant data-roaming charges my Canadian cellular provider wants to charge. In fact, I disabled my Canadian cellular data line on my phone after getting one or two $15 roaming charges when a few kilobytes of data somehow, despite me disabling roaming settings, leaked out onto the roaming network instead of over the new eSim connection I had installed. Incidentally the eSim provider I used is Ubigi, and I have nothing but good things to say about them. It's been a lifesaver here and so much more convenient than carrying around a portable wifi hotspot.

We were at the "hyutte" well in time for dinner, which turned out to be a very nice meal considering our remote location. An Italian guy was working at the hut, and gave us a bit of information about our intended route. At dinner we had some great views across the valley, and Iain, peak-spotter extraordinaire, was able to identify some of them, which I think duly impressed our table mates. However, I think we may have not impressed them by jumping into the front of the queue when the second seating of dinner was called for. This was partly due to the fact that Iain had sat down at the top of the stairs leading into the dining room and we hadn't really noticed a well-defined queue, and partly because when they called for dinner "number 2" I thought they were referring to our hut booking reservation number, which also happened to be "number 2".  I also didn't incur too many favours by needing to get up in the middle of dinner to go talk to the hut staff about our bento-box breakfasts, which we had decided we didn't want as much as a proper sit-down morning breakfast in the morning. But Japanese people are gracious, and at such times I like to think that I can play the "ignorant foreigner" card. The folks sitting next to us did engage in a bit of conversation, asking if I had climbed many other mountains in Japan. Getting a bit over-zealous I chuckled and said its been 25 years since I first climbed in these mountains, musing about how long its been and waxing on about climbing "all" of the 3000er's in Japan -- which I realize in hindsight is not true; between the two of us we've done many if not most, but not all of them -- and I probably sounded boastful.  I'll try to do better next time.

Dinner at the Hyutte

After dinner there was not much to do, so after a bit of a wander outside to do some stretching, and brushing of teeth, I hung out in the foyer for a little bit checking out the weather forecast, which seemed to indicate similar conditions the following day (cloud cover, potential for rain or thunderstorms). Not ideal. At the front desk I inquired once again about the Panorama Course and got some vague response about it being closed due to danger. Overhearing the conversation, a Japanese man interjected that it was frozen, and we definitely could not pass it unless we had ice axes and crampons. I found this assertion annoying and ridiculous. Japan doesn't have any glaciers, and the few permanent snowfields it has, like the one higher up in Karasawa cirque, are small and easily bypassed in the hot summer. With temperatures at our elevation well above freezing at night, there was no possible way that snow or ice could be the reason for the closure. I assumed it must be because of bear sightings or a landslide, but the Japanese bloke's assertion that it was frozen and required crampons and ice axes somehow really irritated me. It seems to happen more frequently in Japan than elsewhere that you get these know-it-all types who don't really know what they're talking about but loudly pronounce the impossibility of doing something without having all sorts of unnecessary equipment.

The Hotaka ridge seen from Karasawa Hyutte

The accommodation at the hut was better than expected. I thought it would be one large room with a bunch of futons laid out but in fact it was essentially a warren of little bunkies separated by walls with curtains for privacy from the main hallway.  It was a quirky little place that had obviously seen a lot of climbers through it. All the the walls, hallways, and floors were slightly askew, and yet polished with age and the passing of many stockinged feet. It had the appearance of a building that had been there for a very, very long time and was gracefully aging and settling into the contours of the mountain. I loved the vibe.

Sleeping quarters in Karasawa Hytte

Sleeping quarters in Karasawa Hyutte

Boot room at Karasawa Hyutte

Unfortunately, although the night was peaceful, neither Iain or I were able to sleep. For Iain, it was probably jet lag, still being on London time. But for me, I guess my mind was just too active. Excited to be back in the North Alps of Japan, in a mountain hut. Concerned about what the morning would bring and how we would do on the route. With the small window in our sleeping cubicle open, a breeze wafted from somewhere within the hut, flapping the curtain separating our room from the hallway, and blowing past my face before escaping out our window. A few days later I came down with Covid and wondered if it was because of staying in the hut.

As dawn approached I may have dozed off for short stretches, only to grow uncomfortable and turn over in my futon, which was cozy although the thinly carpeted wooden floor was hard. Eventually traces of dawn leaked in through the window, a blueish grey faint light and the quiet sound of moving expanses of air punctuated with the occasional sound of activity from the earliest risers getting off to an alpine start. 

That was not for us. We got up for the second sitting of breakfast, which was still early enough. Iain seemed to be of the opinion that our route was easily climbable in a few hours with only 700M of elevation gain, albeit quite a few ups and downs along the way. Essentially a low-grade scramble with one or two pitches of easy rock climbing. I think under ideal conditions that might be the case. Stepping outside and seeing cloud and mist engulfing the entire route, I had my doubts. When a light rain began to fall I felt that it probably wasn't a good idea.  We talked again to the Italian staff member at breakfast, and asked for his thoughts about attempting the route. Obviously he didn't want to tell us wether we should or shouldn't do it, he just said he thought it was possible, but would likely be windy and cold, and the rock wet, and that a few days earlier, a party had gone up in similar weather, one of them had fallen, and staff from the hut had to form a rescue party to go up.  He offered that as an alternative, since we were planning to stay at the Hotaka-dake Sanso hut that night anyway, maybe we could just hike up there, drop off any unnecessary gear, and make a foray along the ridge to the Gendarme, which he said was one of his favourites.  Honestly, I did not like the sound of doing exposed scrambling and climbing on wet rock in cold and windy conditions, and this alternative plan seemed ok as a fallback plan, but after agonizing over the decision, Iain said he preferred to go down, which was also fine with me.  If we climbed up into the clouds there would be no views to enjoy anyway. The scheduling worked out well for me to, if I could make it all the way back to Himeji that day, which I did.

Ironically as we stood viewing the approach to the cloudy north ridge we saw a couple of climbers crossing the scree field and making their way up to the 5-6 Col.  They were going for it… But we had made up our minds.

On the way back, I sped down the trail, almost trail-running in some sections, passing numerous parties. They invariably would pause to let me pass when they heard my footsteps approaching. I said "excuse me", "thank you" and carried on, sometimes picking up bits of commentary about what long legs the foreigner had. I didn't want to appear to be showing off, but honestly I was just having a lot of fun coming down. My knees seemed to be tolerating it well, and I wanted to see if I could beat the map time by a good amount. Probably because of the running I'd been doing, my legs didn't get tired, it was more of a cardio workout. In the end, after blasting down the trail, I think I shaved only about 40 minutes off the 5hr10m map time, and ended up taking a 1.5 hour break at Tokusawa anyway, where I had an ice cream cone, waited for Iain, and then had another ice cream cone.

Back in Kamikochi that afternoon I met the old genteman from the Technical Information desk again and asked him about the Panorama Course, which he had said would be an excellent way to go. I explained that we had found both the start of the route, and the top up in Karasawa, barricaded with signs, and that someone had told me its because there was snow and ice on the route. He said he really did not believe it was closed due to snow and ice, but that it might be due to rockfall, a statement which made me feel a lot better and justified in taking a dim view of the loud-mouthed Japanese guy in the hut.

Of course I was disappointed at not being able to climb our route, and the disappointment hung onto me like the clouds that hung around the high peaks. I remained in a somber mood for several days after. But I loved being able to do this trip. I loved going back to Kamikochi, the magnificent views on bus journey there, the sorting of gear in the plaza at the Kamikochi bus terminal, the fresh mountain water and cool air, the hike in to Karasawa, the Hyutte, the mountain views, and the planning and preparation and anticipation that preceded it all.  It's all kind of bittersweet. The questionable nature of our decision not to go for it made me doubt myself and feel a bit guilty. If another party climbed it that day, we probably could have, too (but whether we would have enjoyed it or not is another question). Cancelling our planned stay at the Hotaka Sanso hut on the second night, and wondering what conditions might've been like if we'd scrambled out to the Gendarme weighed on my mind al well. And certainly mixed with these thoughts was the realization that such opportunities are rare, when members of the Toyohashi Alpine Club manage to get together and climb something, especially in Japan, wondering if and when the next opportunity will be. And realizing that now, nearly thirty years after my first visit, it's actually a good question to wonder if its the last time I'll see the view of Kappabashi… this question also joined the melancholic train of thoughts running through my mind.  It was some consolation to see on the mountain web-cams that the ridge up on Hotaka never did clear up that day, and the weather forecast for the rest of the week was even worse. At least our timing was not to blame.

Near Kappabashi bridge in Kamikochi

It was fun to hear Iain reminisce about his activities over the past years. He's an experienced traveller and a seasoned travelling companion, highly motivated to get out and do things.  Since our first years of living in the Nagoya / Toyohashi area, he's been back to Japan more times than I, and on each visit he made a point of "doing something in the mountains".  The fact that his daughters are older than mine and he was making yearly summer trips to Japan during their childhood years probably has something to do with maintaining his connection and familiarity with the mountains here. He remembered a lot of historical, cultural and geographic details which, to me, seemed like distant memories slowly re-awakening. I definitely must not wait another 10 years to go back to the Japan Alps, and I vow not to let that happen. This trip truly reminded me how wonderful it is to climb mountains in Japan, and it re-ignited my desire to do more. The seeds of planning the next trip have already been planted, so I hope that the next time I write about the North Alps, I can report that we finally climbed our route.