Tsubakuro Solo - a lesson everyone has to learn

Several days ago I went to Tsubakuro, a peak in the Northern Japanese Alps, to test some gear I recently bought and of course as I like mountaineering just to have fun.

That "several days ago" was just Christmas time '99... Why on Christmas? Well, one way or the other this would have been the first Christmas I am not with my family, so why not be alone? And where can one be alone? - in the mountains.

I am in Japan for 5 years (counting since April '98) now as a Government Scholarship Student (Monbusho or Japanese Ministry of Education pays my scholarship). This year I am supposed to study (and learn!) Japanese and some other subjects (also in Japanese) like Math, Physics and Chemistry.

For those of you who don't know anything about this language, in two words it is VERY DIFFICULT. Not only because of the different word order, but also the usage of the so called Kanji-taken from Chinese characters, each bearing semantics and having several readings. There are a lot more things to be said about Japan, Japanese and so on, but that is not the subject here. So far- so good. The good things slightly surpass all the bad things.

And what about Japanese mountains, climbing in Japan...? Well, may be the most famous Japanese mountain is Mt. Fuji (Fuji San in Japanese). With its height of 3766.5 m its a pretty big one, a? It's one of the symbols of Japan and that's why many foreigners (me included), here called GaiJin, have visited it. You can read my other story about Mt. Fuji. The other mountain in Japan (yes, there are almost no other) is the so called Japanese Alps (Northern, Central and Southern). That is a relatively big mountain range with several peaks above 3000m. There are places which do resemble (European) Alps and may be from there comes the name. Being more specific, this is my second time in the Northern Japanese Alps (Kita Arupsu in Japanese), first time being in Tateyama region. This time, after seeing some very good pictures, I decided to visit Tsubakuro (2763 m) - a peak in Kita Arupsu.

As you might have expected, as a student I try to spare every yen (1 $=120 yen) I receive (so that I can buy some good gear:-).

In Japan, by using JR lines during summer and winter holidays one can travel with Ju Hatci Kippui (18 ticket?) which costs 11,500 yen and can be used 5 times (in fact that is just 5 tickets packed as one) each time 24 hours jt most. Once you enter JR station they stamp the date on it, and when you exit at your last destination they check the seal. Using JR effectively is almost art, as one has to read a lot of Kanji, often run from one line to another for a change, and of course change many, many times. Partly this can be solved by using (ILLEGALY!!) express trains, which of course are much faster and convenient. It is all about the attitude of Japanese towards GaiJin here: a Japanese will (almost) never make you feel bad, will always try to help you and make sure to leave good impression about Japan. Using that, you just get on the first express and fall asleep right away, start reading (better a Japanese textbook) or something of the kind. But be careful: Expresses are much faster and if you take a wrong one, you will have traveled a lot before you realize that! The guy checking the tickets will pass several times by you and if you don't pay him attention he may not ask for your ticket. That's the whole trick. And it works. Ah, forgot... If you somehow get caught, just say in broken English "Don't andarstent!" and make stupid and confused faces. Most probably you will have to get off the next station, or in the worst case you will have to pay the additional cost for Ltd. Express. So you are off the train? Usually the next express is in less than 30 minutes, don't worry- try again. If you are very unlucky you may meet English speaking personnel, or if you are extremely unlucky may be pay some money, but it's worth the risk.

Here everything began; the bus stop near my dorm.

Going on a winter camp is hard (heavy); my 25kg rucksack.

On this trip, starting 8:10 a.m. from JR Ibaraki station in Osaka, I traveled for 7 hours with 7 different trains (2 "express" attempts- 1st unsuccessful) and around 3 p.m. I was in JR Hotaka Eki (=Station) my starting point. Like many other places, on this station there was a big painting of the panorama one can see with the peaks' names (in Kanji). Just outside the station I ran into a tourist information center, a lot of them can be found all over Japan, and with my poor Japanese I understood very bad news... I had two options for transportation to Nakabusa OnSen (Hot Spring). First was to take taxi for around 3000 yen for the first 8 km; second was - on foot. The really bad news was that, because of the winter, the remaining 13 km road to Nakabusa were closed! I had planned to hitchhike that 21 km distance or at most take a bus, but I had to walk instead rearranged my fairly big rucksack (25.5 kg + 3 kg boots), put my sneakers on, refilled my bottle with water and under the amazed look of the lady at that Info bureau I started slowly and steady to lessen these damn 21 km. It was 4 p.m. After I got partially lost in Hotaka and asked several people for the way (all amazed, where I am going in winter, after 4 p.m.) I finally reached the gate closing the remaining 13 km. It was completely dark.

Using my tiny flashlight I inserted my Tozanshya card in the box there and jumped over the barrier...