Once upon a time (8/11-12) Rachel and Laura Nordaas (Amy's sister) went on a hike...

and they (especially Rachel because Amy's sister is amazingly genki) almost died from the hike, but loved it nonetheless. Masochists to the core. Had anyone told them how incredibly hard this stretch of trail would be they would have gone anyway and still had a marvelous time. But no one did... and it was one of the hardest trails Rachel had ever hiked... a definite love/hate relationship with the trail... and they most definitely had a marvelous, if not exhausting :) , time. Why was the trail so hard, you ask? Well. Let's look a little a the difference between the majority of trails in the U.S. (at least the majority of the ones Rachel has hiked) and the majority of the trails in Japan. U.S. trails tend to follow valleys, or the side of hills/mountains, and usually run a side trail off to the peak or go up one peak and back down the other side (or something like that) to another trail that follows along the side of the mountain or the valley. Seldom do trails follow the ridgeline, and they almost always switchback up and back down. In Japan, however, this tends to be somewhat the opposite - at least for the particular trail system they hiked. They go straight up (hardly, if any, switchbacks) and follow the ridgeline exactly as God made it. And in Japan that means either going straight up or straight down and never at the same time (we hope). By the time these 2 brave pioneers finished, their thighs and calves were jello. Strawberry jello, to be exact.
(ok. I'm tired of writing in the third person.)
We started from a train station at the ocean at 9am. grins Nothing like starting at sea level! woohoo! (see? masochists.)

And made it to the actual trailhead by 11am. (We went on a slight detour to see some gorgeous blue ponds - Juniko - which actually means 12 Lakes, but in reality they're ponds.)

The trail system we hiked is called Shirakami Sanchi. I'm not exactly sure what the "chi" part of Sanchi means, but Shirakami means white god and san means mountain... so maybe chi means range. It's a World Heritage area and is renowned for its Buna (Beech) trees.

And they are most definitely a rare and beautiful sight to behold. The mystic beauty of the moss covered trees combined with the actual mist that we walked through all day definitely left us feeling as if we really were in an enchanted forest. Except that it was so incredibly hot and humid (actually... not so hot, but the suffocating humidity makes it seem a lot hotter than it actually is). Seriously, I've never sweat so much in my entire life. Before we had left the Nordaas's house that morning, Laura thought of a brilliant idea to take Japanese 'fans-on-a-stick' with us (not their real name, just the name I've given them because I can never remember what they're really called).

We named one Amy in honor of her, wishing that she could be there with us (too bad Amy can't read this. :( Maybe I'll just email it to her. :) ). If we hadn't had those fans... we would have been in sorry shape. And I would have died. (On a more serious note, the humidity really did make it hard to breath. I was starting to come down with bronchitis the day before we left, so on a couple occasions it felt like someone with very large hard hands was strangling my lungs. Not fun. I don't recommend the experience. ;P ) BUUUT we made it. :) By 6pm we reached the fork in the trail where we had planned to set up our tent near.

The left trail would take us to the summit of Shirakami san in 15 min, and the right was the trail we wanted to hike out the next morning. Once our packs were off our mood (and bodies) became significantly lighter. ;) We scarfed down our onigiri (rice, tunafish, seaweed sandwiches) and set up our tent. Unfortunately, the only place close to be suitable for setting up a tent happened to be at the trail fork...

totally against all backpacking/tenting-setting-up rules, but we didn't have any other choice. It was the trail, the sharp bamboo that surrounded us, or off the side of the mountain. We voted on the trail and prayed no one would be stupid enough to start hiking at 2 in the morning. We did the things girls do before going to bed...

bathroom, talk, brush teeth, talk, attempt to wash face, talk, bathroom, talk, go to bed, talk, bathroom, talk, really to go bed. We really went to bed by 8pm. It was heavenly. We woke up at 4:30,

grabbed more onigiri, some breakfast bars, and some cheese, and made our way to the summit to watch the sunrise. Near the summit we found... bathrooms. :)
(the building to the left is the bathroom and the rise to the right is the summit)
Perhaps... only in Japan. And a tiny emegency cabin (which we knew about prior to hiking) that had 5 men camping in it (which we did NOT know about prior to hiking. Good thing we didn't plan on sleeping in it! hahaha).

I think they were more surprised to see us than we were to see them. They were so confused. They couldn't figure out where we came from and how we got there THAT early in the morning. They asked us when we started hiking. grins And we said yesterday. hehe They looked at us quizzically and asked where we slept, and we said in a tent "back there". And then (this we had to keep from laughing at) they said "Well, you could have slept HERE." hahaha um. Where? It was a tiny cabin and there were already 5 men there. It would have been interesting to say the least. We told them it was ok. :) We enjoyed our tent. And I think they thought we were crazy foreigners (Japanese women would never do that... at least none that I've ever met or heard of.). But they were nice and Laura and I made our way to the tippy top to watch the sun rise over our side of Japan. It was beautiful. Worth all the pain of the previous day. :)

And by 5:30ish we were headed down, facing the Japan sea.


A beautiful, cool morning. Birds. Fresh breeze. Well rested. And of course, well fed. ;) The hike down was beautiful and uneventful, and by 8:30-9 we were on pavement (honestly, the trail was much kinder to our feet) headed to our train station. At this time (on the paved road headed to our train station - Shirakamisanchitozenguchi) we ran in to 4 guys on their way up. A couple were dressed in jeans, one in a soccer uniform, I think 1 or 2 of them were carrying little drawstring sports shoulder bags, and none carrying any significant amount of food or water, if any (I think 1 of them had a tiny water bottle). They asked us where we came from. We said Juniko - yesterday. They said (something to the effect of) "oh really? we're going there today!" We asked them if they had food or water. They smiled a 'no' smile. We asked them if they had a headlamp or flashlight. They laughed a 'why on earth would we need one of those' laughs. We asked them if they were planning on dieing that day from dehydration or starvation, or getting stuck in the mountains after dark. Just kidding. We didn't really ask them that. But we did suggest they not go to Juniko. And then talked about what we didn't ask them amongst ourselves, wondering if they weren't the true masochists. Or maybe just very inexperienced in hiking. Or maybe just stupid. And we hoped they wouldn't continue on to Juniko that day. So, around 9:30-10 or so we're arrived at our train shack, er I mean, train station. :) The next train was coming by in 2 hours. The train shack wasn't a very pleasant place to hang out for 2 hours (very stuffy, lots of horse flies), so we decided that since the Juniko station was only 2 train stations away, and a short easy and paved (and later unbearably hot) 6km (compared to the 20km - about - we'd just finished) we decided to walk. We arrived at Juniko Eki seeking shade and hydration (eki=trainstation), fried from the black tar skillet we'd been walking on for an hour. It turned out that it was a good thing we didn't stay at the Shiramkamitozenguchi station because the train we had booked ahead of time doesn't stop at that station because it's so small. grins We would have watched our train go by without us. :) So finally, so tired we could hardly keep our eyes open or converse, we caught our train and were merrily (as merrily as 2 exhausted hikers

smelling of body sweat and contendedness can be) on our way. Air conditioning is wonderful. And on the way back (the long, scenic, coastline way), we made a random 10 min stop at Senjyoujiki (1,000 tatami - woven rice straw - mats and I don't know what the jiki means) - basically an exposed reef with very cool tidal pools filled with all sorts of little sea creatures.
So we ran around, hopping from 1 rock tatami mat to another

poking our hands in the water at the little sea creatures

and having a marvelous 10 minutes till our train called us back with its whistle. :) And before we knew it, we were back in Takanosu, showered and ready for a nice long sleep. And that is the beginning of my friendship with Laura, Amy's sister. May our hiking expeditions be many more. grins