27 March (cont’d): we take leave of Kogure Ritarō, but not before noting that his monument stands at Kanayama, or “Gold Mountain”. A signboard by the road attests to the literal truth of this place name: the yellow metal was mined here in the days of the warlord Takeda Shingen (1521-73), who used it to finance his campaigns. Moreover, the sign tells us, after a hard day’s digging, his miners found that the local springs had remarkable curative powers … Continuing our walk down the pleasant river valley, we arrive at Masutomi just before the sun dips below the ridge. A mini-truck proclaiming ..read more

27 March (cont’d): perhaps by default, the Sensei and I increasingly practise the art of Slow Mountaineering. For like it or not, we’re never going to make it down to Masutomi hot springs in forty-five minutes, as could Yamaki-san in his youth. Instead, we amble down the road, soaking up the afternoon sunshine and listening to the first tentative birdsong ripple through the bare woods. The Sensei even tries whistling back to a nightingale. Taking a short cut across a bend in the road, we happen across the old path down to Masutomi. This guides us to our next appointment – with Kogure Ritar ..read more

27 March (cont’d): coming down from Mizugaki, we find that the warm sun has transformed the path through the woods into a spring-like avenue. The morning’s powder snow has melted, and the road in front of Mizugaki Sanso is steaming gently.  We drop back into the lodge for an after-lunch coffee with our host, Yamaki-san. A local man – there’s a village of that name on the way to Nirasaki - he and his wife have been running Mizugaki Sanso for forty-four years, taking over after the early death of his elder brother. In those days, there was no road down to Masutomi, but he could still run ..read more

27 March: during the early hours, the wind and rain fall suspiciously quiet. At dawn, we see that a light snowfall has dusted the trees around Mizugaki Sanso. Our quest for the eponymous Meizan starts at 7 am when we skate across the frozen road in front of the lodge. The path through the woods winds between huge boulders, all steeped in an eerie blue penumbra; the sun has yet to climb above the ridge. We haven’t gone far when we meet a youth, still wearing crampons, on his way down. A camera of formidable calibre identifies him as a mountain photographer. Sure enough, he started his climb ..read more

24 March (cont), east of Shin-Okubo in the office of the NPO Mt Fuji Research Station: we come for a cup of tea but find ourselves imbibing the raw materials of history. Round the table are members of the Fuyō Nikki no Kai, an association dedicated to researching the story of Nonaka Itaru (1867-1955) and his wife Chiyoko (1871-1923), who spent more than two months in the winter of 1895 taking weather measurements on the summit of Mt Fuji. We are careful not to spill our tea. For on the grey metal office table in front of us is the manuscript of Nonaka Chiyoko’s journal, Fuyō Nikki, just as ..read more

24 March: on our way to visit friends in Ogikubo, a Tokyo suburb, we drop into the local Hakusan shrine – since Hakusan is the Sensei’s local Meizan, and therefore your correspondent’s mountain-in-law. As an additional incentive, from a previous visit I remember a small flock of cats a-prowling in the shrine’s grounds. A notice by the entrance tells us that the shrine venerates the goddess Izanagi and dates back to the Bunmei period (1469-1487) when a certain Nakada Kaga no Kami built a shrine here. Legend has it that, when Nakada’s younger brother was suffering from a severe toothache, the ..read more

22 March: we haven’t visited Ochi-san (616 metres) since the pandemic. Nor have we heard any news of Otani-sensei, the genial guardian of its summit shrine, who always used to invite us in for tea at his summit lodge. So, following in the footsteps of Monk Taichō, who inaugurated the mountain a millennium and a bit ago, we drive the short distance from the Sensei’s hometown. As to warn us that everything must change, a brash new map heralds the start of the trail. But the factory forests of cryptomeria are much as we found them before. We make as much haste as we can through these monotonou ..read more

16 March: the president of the local mountaineering club invites us to hike the Kurosaki peninsula near Tsuruga. Driving towards the rendezvous, we see sluggardly bales of fog roll in from the Japan Sea.  We leave the cars beside a hot spring hotel and set off up a steep and muddy path through an unpromising factory forest. Where we take a break, soon before reaching the ridgeline, a more varied woodland seems to be pushing back against the serried cryptomeria. Sitting on fallen branches and munching on konyaku jelly and the Sensei's homegrown sweet potatoes, we discuss factionalism ..read more

15 March: some of the best trips happen at short notice. Yesterday, I was still on the train from the airport when the email from Wes Lang came in: “Tomorrow I will climb Mt Hino (日野山) in Echizen city …” it read. At the shrine Now this was no ordinary invitation. Wes long ago climbed all of the One Hundred Mountains. And, more recently, he and co-author Tom Fay have published their magisterial guidebook to Hiking and Trekking: The Japan Alps and Mount Fuji. But what is he up to now? There was only one way to find out … So, the Sensei and I find ourselves walking into the precinct ..read more

 Sorry this is a bit late for International Women’s Day, but Nicole Niquille really deserves a day to herself. A recent interview in the Swiss Alpine Club’s bimonthly magazine brings us up to date with her story.  Back in the 1980s, Niquille was one of Switzerland’s top alpinists – notice that the phrase isn’t “top female alpinists” – visiting K2 in 1985. She qualified as a mountain guide, the first Swiss woman to do so in the same year as her Everest expedition in 1986. “There was no feminist motive, I just wanted to live in the mountains,” she is quoted as saying in th ..read more