the trail down to home : July 21 2025

taken at the service area, the sunset view looked promising. it looked like a celebratory scene. i will take it as that, we hiked up a mountain and came back unharmed, that is something to be celebrated about.

this entry will cover the very last part of the three day trip, the return to home part.

by the lift and gondola

we had this joke yesterday that if it would be better, we might try paragliding down the mountain. we had a closer view this time and these seemed like for personal use. we really thought that they offered this service for a fee. i wonder how we will get down if we were left at our on a paraglide, will we ever reach the mountain foot? we will probably continue drifting till tokyo and have a good laugh about it.

so here we were with the rather boring lift ride. boring to them but this was scary to me; we were facing down the mountain and my fear of heights kicked in. i was yelling and laughing out loud just to cover my fears. the last time i experienced this was on a snowboard trip this year.

we eventually reached the gondola station and they offered a cold towel for cooling our bodies down. that helped my arms and face at least.

down the bottom

that mountain peak at 2696 meters was where we came from, karamatsudake (唐松岳). we slept near that peak overnight, although i found it really hard to sleep and woke up multiple times. the sleeping quarters also had no internet access, that did not help at all.

we reached the grounds and i was very much satisfied. this was one of my hardest hikes, but a very enjoyable one. and i was even willing to climb another peak in this japanese alps in two weeks, as joked.

we were now at the bottom and enjoying the hard earned fruits of our labor. this soft ice was a blessing, and a hot onsen bath never felt so relaxing. did i ever mention that the mountain hut had no water for baths? this onsen was a needed cleanse after 2 days worth of sweat and grime. refreshing!

ride back

it was a three day long vacation, it was expected to have heavy traffic flows going back to tokyo. we expected this, no dinner plans after the bus ride at all. we bought snacks at the service area stops and treated those as dinner. we also kept going inside tunnels, internet signals kept getting cut off. but i guess that was fine as most people were tired from their individual activities. at least i wanted to sleep for the whole bus trip.

at a surprisingly short 30 minutes delay, we reached shinjuku station. it is but fitting to end this trip with a picture of it at night tk contrast what i took at the beginning of the trip.

as mentioned, we returned home safe and sound and that is the best outcome. it was a very rewarding once in a lifetime experince. and pictures could not really capture how beautiful everything really was.

as always, AMPING KANUNAY!