The Japanese Alps

We took the shinkansen up to Nagano from Tokyo early on the Thursday morning, then switched to a (very sickly) bus journey in to a valley called Kamikochi deeper in the Japanese alps. We arrived around lunchtime and after dropping off our bags did our first walk up to dakesawa hut. This a waypoint on to much more ambitious climbs on to Mount Hotakadake, but those were definitely not on our radar. The walk to the hut took 2.5-3 hours overall, but it was pretty much constant climbing and so was a bit more challenging than we expected. It was totally worth it: we got some great views back down to the valley and of the surrounding mountains.

Friday was a total washout. We managed to get a nice walk within the valley in the morning, but the weather significantly worsened and we got totally drenched walking back from our lunch spot. We spent most of the afternoon and evening reading in the cabin.

The weather on Saturday was significantly better so we were able to climb Mount Yasedake, our plan from the previous day. This was a longer and tougher climb than that to dakesawa hut. Lots of ascending, with ladders and ropes involved at various points. The last few hundred meters of climbing was particularly interesting - as we reached the crater of the volcano, the landscape became increasingly rocky and sulphuric. At the top of the mountain there was a volanic rock pool, as well as generally rewarding views.

After Kamikochi, we stayed in Nagano for a couple of nights. This was nice enough, but was more of a convenient waypoint than a destination in its own right. Our main tourist activity for the Sunday was to take the short trip down to Matsumoto to see the castle. We also ate some extremely fluffy pancakes.

Monday we left the Japanese alps and went up to Kanazawa on the coast. There’s another castle here, but not as impressive as the one in Matsumoto so we mostly stuck to the ground and the gardens next to it. We went for a walk in the geisha district in the evening and I failed to take any photos.

We’ve been getting a bit better at finding vegetarian food, though we did accidentally order some meat when we were hiking in Kamikochi. I forced my way through that, and on another occassion we both had a small amount of fish with some ramen. There have been more success stories though, including a visit to a roll-your-own sushi restaurant in Kanazawa, which was really good even though we were very bad at the rolling part.