Monday, August 04, 2008
Yesterday, I went to revenge my 2005 climb of Mount Kinpu. The latter is one of the "100 Famous Japanese Mountains", which is a list compiled by by mountaineer/author Kyūya Fukada and later made popular by Crown Prince Naruhito.
In 2005, we approached the mountain from Oodarumi, which is located approximately 1 hour by taxi from Enzan JR Station (塩山駅) in Yamanashi Prefecture. Oodarumi is located at an altitude of 2,360 meters, which makes for a relatively easy climb up to Mount Kinpu (2,598 meters). From Mount Kinpu, we then descended to Mizugakisansou(瑞牆山荘), which is located at an altitude of 1,520 meters. In 2002, we therefore had a relatively easy ascent and a tough descent, which I felt in my knees for 2 weeks afterwards. By the way, a taxi from Enzan JR Station to Oodarumi costs just over 10,000 yen, and there is no public transportation to Oodarumi.
This time around, we decided to take the opposite route, thus we approached the mountain from Mizugakisansou, which is located approximately 50 minutes from Nirasaki JR Station. The cost of the taxi from Nirasaki JR Station was just around 10,000 JPY.
Climbing over 1,000 meters during summer in Japan is quite challenging. Also, there is no water to be found along the route, thus it is advisable to bring a lot of fluids. We brought only a few bottles each (about 2 liters per person), which was far from sufficient.
The climb up to Mount Kinpu from Mizugakisansou took approximately 4.5 hours, and we used about 2 hours on the climb down to Oodarumi. When arriving in Oodarumi, we discovered that the area has no cell phone connection or public phones (normally unimaginable in Japan), thus my friend Kaoru had to hitchhike to Enzan city in order to order a taxi. As a result from this delay, we did not have time to relax in an onzen (hot spring) after our climb.
Anyone planning a 1 day climb of Mount Kinpu should consider the early morning express trains from Shinjuku station. We took a 7 AM morning train from Shinjuku that arrived in Nirasaki at 8:36 AM, and after our taxi ride we could therefore start climbing at 10 AM.
I have posted some more pictures of our August 2 climb of Mount Kinpu.
In 2005, we approached the mountain from Oodarumi, which is located approximately 1 hour by taxi from Enzan JR Station (塩山駅) in Yamanashi Prefecture. Oodarumi is located at an altitude of 2,360 meters, which makes for a relatively easy climb up to Mount Kinpu (2,598 meters). From Mount Kinpu, we then descended to Mizugakisansou(瑞牆山荘), which is located at an altitude of 1,520 meters. In 2002, we therefore had a relatively easy ascent and a tough descent, which I felt in my knees for 2 weeks afterwards. By the way, a taxi from Enzan JR Station to Oodarumi costs just over 10,000 yen, and there is no public transportation to Oodarumi. This time around, we decided to take the opposite route, thus we approached the mountain from Mizugakisansou, which is located approximately 50 minutes from Nirasaki JR Station. The cost of the taxi from Nirasaki JR Station was just around 10,000 JPY.
Climbing over 1,000 meters during summer in Japan is quite challenging. Also, there is no water to be found along the route, thus it is advisable to bring a lot of fluids. We brought only a few bottles each (about 2 liters per person), which was far from sufficient.The climb up to Mount Kinpu from Mizugakisansou took approximately 4.5 hours, and we used about 2 hours on the climb down to Oodarumi. When arriving in Oodarumi, we discovered that the area has no cell phone connection or public phones (normally unimaginable in Japan), thus my friend Kaoru had to hitchhike to Enzan city in order to order a taxi. As a result from this delay, we did not have time to relax in an onzen (hot spring) after our climb.
Anyone planning a 1 day climb of Mount Kinpu should consider the early morning express trains from Shinjuku station. We took a 7 AM morning train from Shinjuku that arrived in Nirasaki at 8:36 AM, and after our taxi ride we could therefore start climbing at 10 AM.
I have posted some more pictures of our August 2 climb of Mount Kinpu.
|
 |
