Hike it: Japan
Along the
knife’s edge
Matthew Crompton takes on Japan’s most notorious trek
P
erched sweating on a
narrow ledge 1,000m
above the valley floor, my
clammy fingers gripped
on to a length of rusty steel chain
bolted into the near-vertical rock
face, the words from an internet
message board that drew me here
come echoing loudly back:
“The goal of hiking the Daikiretto
is very simple,” they say, clouds swirl-
ing far beneath my feet. “Do not die.”
The Daikiretto would be an easy
80 January/February 2011 www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk
place for it, a high and wandering
knife-edge ridge complete with un-
roped 100m scrambles and bent and
rusting ladders installed sometime
during the Thatcher administration.
But carefully clutching the chain
as I skirt a sharp prominence in the
rock, I understand that it’s not the
what of the Daikiretto that surprises
me most, but the where. This could
easily be Nepal, I think, the high
mountains of Alaska or the Peruvian
Andes. But where I am is a land
better known for bullet trains and What: The
acres of neon than long, vertiginous Kamikochi
drops and moments of extreme
– Yarigatake –
Hotaka Circuit
personal danger. I pause, looking out
to the vast, empty spaces all around Length:
me, amazed I’m in Japan.
Three days
Isolated and exposed with the Total ascent/
sharp wind cutting through my descent:
2,300m
sweat-soaked shirt, this moment
seems antithetical to everything Look out for:
I thought I knew about this place Rusty ladders,
sheer drops
– silence and solitude in a land of
sprawling mega-cities, genuine

danger in a country known above all for
its safety. There on the ledge with blood
thudding in my ears, I look up at the
chains and ladders bolted into the moun-
tainside, and begin to climb once more.
Funny thing about this trek: for
something that kills an average of a
dozen people a year, it’s awfully easy to
get here. The North Japanese Alps, the
setting for this three-day circuit topping
Japan’s third- and fifth-highest moun-
tains, drew over 250,000 people in 2007
alone, a testament to Japan’s fantastically
www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk January/February 2011 81
Hike it: Japan
efficient bus and rail system, which can
shuttle a visitor from Tokyo to the base
of the mountains in little more than five
hours. And it’s here, from the tiny town
of Kamikochi in Nagano Prefecture, that
I head off at sunrise on a morning in
August, deep into a conifer forest flanked
by the famous Asuza-gawa river – a blade
of silver and mist running alongside the
trail as it gradually winds its way east and
then north.
The climbing starts in earnest a
few kilometres north of Yoko, the day’s
Hike it: Japan
halfway point, and when it does I can
hear as much as feel it – the heavy
thunder of the Asuza-gawa churned
into blue-white rapids as it roars out
of the Yari-sawa cirque. I ascend for
hours through this dramatic glacial
amphitheatre, mounting endless
switchbacks towards the ridgeline,
the valley still clinging with August’s
last dirty snow.
Eventually, I reach the base of
Mt Yarigatake, 3,180m tall, 22km
distant from Kamikochi and nearly
1,600m above it. First climbed by top
the Buddhist priest and mountain
ascetic Banryu in 1828, Yarigatake was
travel
introduced to the world in the late tips for
19th century by an English goldsmith
called William Gowland, who coined
Japan
the term ‘Japanese Alps’ to refer to
Yarigatake and its sister peaks. Both
Gowland and Banryu would doubt-
1 If you’re going to be spend-
ing any amount of time in
Japan at all, do yourself a favour
less be astonished by the lodge that and buy a Japan Rail Pass. If you
stands in Yari’s sharp, spear-shaped take even three long-distance
shadow today – a miniature city with trips in a seven-day span, it will
futons, clean water and hot meals, all have more than paid for itself.
supplied by helicopter.
I’ve zipped by dozens of hikers
on the way up the cirque, toting
hundred-litre packs full of camping
2 Visit an onsen. These geo-
thermal hot-spring baths,
naturally present in literally
and cooking gear. They straggle in all thousands of places throughout
afternoon, setting up camp on the Japan, are at the heart of the
wind-ripped rocks downslope from Japanese experience, yet few
the lodge. I’m, meanwhile, drinking visitors take the time to sample
an Asahi beer, abundantly thankful one. Nothing feels better after a
to be hauling nothing more burden- long trek.
some than a daypack. True, I pay a
premium of 9,000Y (about £70) for
the luxury of having to carry neither
food nor shelter up on to the roof of
3 Japan’s still a cash society.
Though this is slowly chang-
ing, be sure to bring plenty of
Land of the Rising Sun indeedy:
here’s sunrise at the Hotaka-dake-sanso lodge
Japan, but with the notorious cross- yen if you’re going to be away
ing of the Daikiretto looming before from a cash point for a few days.
me tomorrow, it seems a completely
reasonable price. After dinner (grilled
salmon, rice, broccoli, miso – yum!) I
scramble the last 100m up the steep,
4 Japan’s one of the world’s
greatest food destinations.
Try grilled yakitori chicken skew-
chain-and-ladder-covered slope of ers and beer with salarymen at
Yari and watch the sun set over the a streetside stall in Tokyo, haute
ridgeline running away to the south, kaiseki cuisine in Kyoto, or rich
my body tingling with fear and tonkatsu ramen in Fukuoka.
anticipation.
Seijin Shimoto is there the next
morning at 5.30, lacing up his boots
in the sunrise. “I begin climbing when
5 For lodging, reservations
help enormously. If you can’t
reserve online, try to have your
I am 27,” the wiry septuagenarian current hotel call ahead to your
tells me, his ancient thermal tights next destination. If arriving in
patched at the knees with tape. “I a new town without a room, go
climb all over Japan – Tsurugi-dake, and see the incredibly helpful
Fuji-san – but here is number one.” He folks at the tourist information
sweeps a hand around at the horizon. centre, whose first job is helping
“Nowhere in Japan like this!” visitors find lodging.
“And the Daikiretto?” Knife edge: the Daikiretto ridge

82 January/February 2011 www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk

 Hike it: Japan

‘All I can do is smile and

wonder in amazement
that 36 hours ago I
was standing in the chaos
of a Tokyo subway’

‘Really gnarly climb’: the ascent of Yarigatake

www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk January/February 2011 83

Hike it: Japan
“Daikiretto?” he laughs. “Very excit-
ing!” He thinks for a second;
“Daikiretto real mountain climbing.”
The Japanese word for trekking
is tozan – literally ‘climb mountain’ –
and three hours later, finally stand-
ing on the knife-edge in the pit of
the Daikiretto (the ‘big cut’, a deep
saddle between two 3,000m peaks),
it becomes apparent that Mr Shimoto
wasn’t kidding. From far above on the
precipitous south wall there comes
a sickening crash – something heavy
falling and striking – and my stomach
goes watery. A moment later the
calls come echoing down – “Daijobu!”
“Daijobu!” – as everyone signals
they’re OK. I stare up at the jagged,
crumbling slope. It looks treacherous
– a broken scramble of some 300m,
Almost there: the descent to the
tamed only by a few rusting chains; Matthew looking high and happy Hotaka-dake-sanso lodge
internet sources cheerfully label it as
a ‘frequent accident zone’.
As I begin my way up, following
the white maru (circles) spraypainted
on the rock, I realise that this is what
the Californian in me would call a
‘really gnarly climb’. The pitch is steep
for a scramble, and disconcertingly
crumbly. To add to the fun, it’s often
foolishly exposed and falls are unpro-
tected; any slip, I think, would prove
extremely unhealthy. Still, there’s
good news: the cliff face is blessed
with lots of solid natural holds – the
kind climbers call jugs – and the
chains really do make negotiating
the trickiest sections less suicidal.
By a few minutes in, and even
with the skin on my neck prickling
as I look down at the world beneath
my feet, I have to admit this climb is
an incredible amount of fun. I flatten
my body and keep my weight close
against the rock, letting my legs
do most of the work as I ascend.
Scrambling and stopping for breath,
mounting ladders and sidestepping
along narrow ledges, two hours
disappear in a kind of Zenlike flow.
When at last I find myself on the
opposite peak, looking back on the
Daikiretto sharp and high in the
noontime sun, all I can do is smile
and wonder in amazement that 36
hours ago I was standing in the chaos
of a Tokyo subway. It’s a moment that
encapsulates the real magic of this
trek, how close and yet how far away
you are from everything Japan is
normally conceived to be.
That contrast stays with me Lunch break: a hiker at the col

84 January/February 2011 www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk

 Hike it: Japan

‘By the time I descend

from the day’s final peak
my hands are raw and my
knees a little shaky’

Who’s writing?
Teacher, writer, pho-
tographer and part-
time metaphysician,
Matthew Crompton
has at various times
called Cleveland, San
Francisco and Seoul
home; for 2011 he’s
abroad in the world
at large. Passionately
devoted to trivia and
the search for a freebase form of caffeine, he’ll argue at
length about the relative merits of squat toilets and the
complete validity of rice as a breakfast food. Women,
zoo animals and most Marxists find him irresistible.

www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk January/February 2011 85

Hike it: Japan
as I climb my way through the
col, an equally thrilling but less
famous traverse that follows the
Daikiretto. By the time I descend
three hours later from the day’s
final peak, my hands are raw and
my knees a little shaky. Luckily
the splendid Hotaka-dake-sanso
lodge, a beautiful building of
tatami and polished blonde wood
nestled in the shadow of 3,190m
Oku-Hotaka-dake, is there to
receive me.
At the front desk sits Megumi
Imada in her puffy white coat and
pink beanie. Twenty-five years old,
she’s the granddaughter of Jutaro
Imada, a pioneering climber in
the Northern Alps, and fiercely
devoted to mountain safety.
“Too often Western people
come here only in shorts and
summer clothes,” she tells me
when I ask about international
visitors. “To the high mountains,
unprepared. People hear that it’s
beautiful, or exciting, but they
don’t think about the danger –
don’t know the weather condi-
tions and have no plan of where
to stop or turn back. Especially in
the Alps rain and wind are danger- Impressive: Mt Yarigatake, 3,180m
ous – people falling or getting
too cold. This year, 10 hikers have
died here.” She shakes her head.
“To hike Mt Hotaka, you must be
prepared.”
That evening, in the chilly air
outside the lodge with the sun’s
last rays warming my shoulders, I
reflect on her words and how
precious this place really is. In an
age in which true adventure seems
to belong only to professionals,
or to some time in the distant
past, this trek is the rare thing that
lives up to its billing – a majestic,
exciting and sometimes frighten-
ing discovery; an adventure made
accessible and one that stands
beside the temples of Kyoto and
the glitz of Tokyo as one of Japan’s
truly great experiences.
In the end, what drew me here
is, in a sense, true: you really can
die on the Daikiretto. But what
I’ve discovered in coming is more
precious still: that with careful
planning and preparation, here
in the wilds of the world’s most
modern nation, you’ll rarely feel A new side to Japan: sunset
more alive. ■ over Yarigatake-sanso lodge

86 January/February 2011 www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk


›› The Daikiretto
Want to do what Matthew
did? Here’s how you can…
›› When to go
Peak time for the three-day circuit is
around mid-July to mid-October, when the
trail should be largely snow-free and the
mountain huts are all open. Much before or
after this, the trek will likely require cram-
pons and some huts may be closed. Golden
Week (late April/early May) sees hordes of
Japanese hikers tackling Yarigatake: you’ll
probably have to queue for the summit, and
sleeping arrangements in the lodges may
be unpleasantly cozy. The Japanese Obon
holiday (6-21 August in 2011, and especially
around the 12-16 August) sees another rash
of hikers arriving from the cities. Make travel
arrangements beforehand if visiting during
these times. A small but dedicated group of
Japanese hikers continue to climb the moun-
tain through the winter, though this option
is only for die-hards with proper gear and
extensive winter mountaineering experience.
›› Getting there
The trailhead for the trek’s in the town of
Kamikochi in Nagano Prefecture. Private ve-
hicles are banned from Kamikochi, meaning
immediate access is by bus. The nearest
major railhead to Kamikochi is at Matsumoto
on the JR Shinonoi Line, an hour and 40 min-
utes away by direct bus, or on a combined
ticket with a short transfer to the Matsumoto
Dentetsu Line train at Shin-shimashima.
Buses run 12 times daily from 24 April to 3
November, and cost 2,400Y (about £18).
The nearest major airport to Kamikochi
is Chubu Centrair International near Nagoya.
For those coming to Kamikochi from Japan’s
major entry points in Tokyo and Osaka-Kan-
sai, transport to the region is possible either
by train (favorable mostly only to JR Rail Pass
holders), or by bus.
www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk January/February 2011 87
Hike it: Japan
‘
Let s go
By rail, limited express trains run daily from
Tokyo’s Shinjuku station to Matsumoto
station, taking between two-and-a-half and
three hours (6,710Y, or about £52). From
Osaka, Shin-Osaka or Kyoto stations, connect
in Nagoya (40-70 minutes, roughly £42 - £50)
and take a limited express train to Matsu-
moto (two hours, £47), then onwards by bus
to Kamikochi.
For most visitors, long-distance buses are
a better option, travelling direct to Kamikochi
and saving the need for an expensive and
time-consuming transfer at Matsumoto.
Alpico Group (barebones and somewhat
confusing website available at www.alpico.
co.jp/access/express/index_e.html) runs
nightly buses from near Tokyo’s Shinjuku
station, departing from late April to mid-
November at 11pm daily, and arriving direct
to Kamikochi between 5am and 6am the
following morning, costing roughly £46-£54
one-way. From the Kansai region, daily over-
night buses (11 July - 30 August) leave direct
for Kamikochi from Osaka at 10pm and Kyoto
at 11pm, costing roughly £62 one-way.
›› What to bring
Equipment depends on whether you choose
to camp or to stay in the lodges. For those
wishing to be completely self-reliant, full
camp gear – with tents, sleeping bags, cook-
stoves and food – is required, but campsite
costs run only around 500Y (£4) per person.
It’s also possible to bring nothing but bad-
weather gear, a camera, some snacks and
a change of clothes and to stay and eat in
the mountain huts, which are mostly quite
comfortable and offer excellent hot meals.
A night with dinner and breakfast will run
to around 9000Y (£70). Good shoes, a map,
water and proper clothing for inclement
weather are a must for everybody. Water
refills on the peaks run around 200Y/litre.
Buy any food or other supplies you may need
before arriving in Kamikochi, where prices
are quite high.
›› Maps
The Shobunsha Yama-to-Kogen 1:50,000
map of Yari-ga-take and Hotaka-dake (map
#37 in the series) is the industry standard.
Pick it up in one of the major bookshops of
Tokyo or Osaka before coming.