Today I took a trip into the villages outside Tokyo. As I headed outside at 8am this morning the weather was pleasantly bracing but not too cold, and as I hopped on the first of three trains I felt excited to see one of my most wonderful friends in a wonderful backdrop of autumn leaves. The car journey to the forest filled me with wonder and warm fuzzy feelings as we wound through the hills and I could for once leave all my endless drama behind.
Wrong. So wrong.
Well when we started on the forest trail it was a wide paved road, we said goodbye to that and a small gravel path led on. Absolutely fine. Somewhere along the way the path became narrow, covered in slippery leaves and tree roots and disturbingly vertical. Maybe there was some hill climbing involved…I took a deep breath and scrabbled upwards in a heavy backpack and tread-less Dr Martens. This was not the day I signed up for, I wanted to stand on viewing platforms saying ‘oooohh’ and taking photos. It became increasingly clear as my friends mother and sister bounded jovially along the thin trail that I was not cut out for this. Well the hill never ended, in fact I think it was a mountain (one of many in my immediate area) and by the time I realized I was clinging onto tree roots about 1200 feet in the air with a 60 degree drop a few inches to my side. That is the precise moment I knew I was definitely going to either break all my limbs or die. As you’ve probably guessed by now neither of those things happened but it did involve a lot of crying, swearing, being saved by my friend and absolutely no looking down.
Because many of the trees had shed their leaves the whole area was a slippery leaf avalanche which made it impossible to get a grip. Having little to no balance anyway this was a challenge but somewhere near the top my friend and her mother found me the most perfect branch to use as a hiking stick. This is about the time I realized 70 year old men without hiking sticks were walking briskly past me as I sat on a sturdy looking rock and valiantly fought the urge to cry and vomit.
The view was incredible, in fact it would have taken my breath away if I’d had breath at that point. I had a good cry and a hug from my friends mum at the top, now to tackle the slippery downwards slope…ahhh. Also I’d like to point out I had no idea where we were or how far we had to go to get out of this hellish nightmare (we were VERY near the start), but my adrenaline was slowly helping replace the fear and I was going to give it my best shot. With the help of my friend I decided the best method was to go down on my butt. I walked when I could and shuffled down like a dog with worms when I couldn’t. Apart from the spikes in my arse I enjoyed this method. Then it turned out I had to climb another mountain. Oh it also started snowing, beautiful right? Well no, the leaves became more slippery, the path more intimidating and now I was wet with frozen water as well as the sweat.
Part of the way down I did decided it was beautiful and really quite pleasant in a terrifying sort of way. Continuing on after a couple of hours the end was in sight. I have never been more happy to be on solid flat ground in my entire life. As somebody who even gets a little wobbly standing on chairs this was not something I’d ever wish to repeat but I was thankful for the experience. I’m safe now but very sore and keep getting wobbles when I remember I’m on the second floor….
I don’t understand why the Japanese like hiking so much.
Mata ne x
pondbag 