16. Sep 2012
… continued hike in Minamialps ….
As usual the day starts early in Japanese mountain huts. When my alarm clock rang at 4:30 am, all other hikers already got up and prepared their stuff. Breakfast at 4:50, 10 minutes earlier as scheduled, hiking started at 5:20. It was a clear morning with a beautiful view on Fuji-san. I was surprised – Fujisan looked smaller as usual!
From the mountain hut the trail led up to 3.000 meters, followed a ridge for a while and then went down again to about 2.600 meters, before the final climbing-part started. A cold wind was blowing, the air was very clear. Better a cold wind than warm rain, I thought. After climbing several steep rocks, I reached the peak more than an hour earlier as expected.
On the map the tour from Arakawamountain hut back to Kiwarajima was described as a 10 hours hike. The bus supposed to depart at 2:00 pm. I really needed to hurry up.
I hiked as fast as possible and hour by hour estimated arrival time improved. First 2:00 pm, then I thought 1:00 pm is possible, later I decided to go for 12:00 pm. Actually, I arrived at 11:00 am – looking for the bus, thinking there will be hourly departure – but there wasn’t. The bus back departs at 2:00 pm sharp.
Waiting time was relaxing time – after taking a shower and a hot bath, eating the lunchbox I received in the mountain hut, I took a nap on a wooden bank.
While the bus drove back to the parking place, I was thinking about when I to come back to minamialps to hike the remaining mountains.
Question: what is the correct name of this mountain? I found different names and kanjis….
Start: 荒川小屋 Arakawagoya, 5:20 am, 2.620m
Top: 悪沢岳(東岳) Warusawa-dake, 7:10 am, 3.141m
Finish: 椹島 Sawarajima, 11:00 am, 1.125m
Duration 5h 40 min Height: 800m
