Tag: summer

Categories
Europe: Travel Journal Pyrenees: Travel Travel

Listening For Pyrene’s Echo 1: City By The Lake

(Please click on the images to see them enlarged)

Second part of the series: Listening For Pyrene’s Echo 2: A City In Pink

Third part of the series: Listening For Pyrene’s Echo 3: A Village In The Mist

Fourth part of the series: Listening For Pyrene’s Echo 4: Sanctuary Between the Rivers

“In classical mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe. According to Silius Italicus, she was the virginal daughter of Bebryx, a king in Mediterranean Gaul by whom the hero Hercules was given hospitality during his quest to steal the cattle of Geryon during his famous Labors. Hercules, characteristically drunk and lustful, violates the sacred code of hospitality and rapes his host’s daughter. Pyrene gives birth to a serpent and runs away to the woods, afraid that her father will be angry. Alone, she pours out her story to the trees, attracting the attention instead of wild beasts who tear her to pieces.

“After his victory over Geryon, Hercules passes through the kingdom of Bebryx again, finding the girl’s lacerated remains. As is often the case in stories of this hero, the sober Hercules responds with heartbroken grief and remorse at the actions of his darker self, and lays Pyrene to rest tenderly, demanding that the surrounding geography join in mourning and preserve her name: “struck by Herculean voice, the mountaintops shudder at the ridges; he kept crying out with a sorrowful noise ‘Pyrene!’ and all the rock-cliffs and wild-beast haunts echo back ‘Pyrene!’ … The mountains hold on to the wept-over name through the ages.” (Wikipedia/ Pyrenees)

I alight on the train platform, the stifling summer heat stirring up billowing heat waves from the afternoon platform pavement. Beyond lies the famed name of Geneva, city of the United Nations and CERN, Jean Calvin, Victorinox knives, and chocolate, now a confusing clash of 16th Century buildings mixed with modern glass and steal, and the lingering sweet odor of over-ripe garbage. Not at all what I expected. Already back at the airport everything had been so badly organized, and no one willing to help, with signs all wrong or non-existent, that it had taken three hours to get to the city center, instead of the twenty minutes the guidebook said it would. Now I can’t find the exit to the station because there are no signs for it. This would be my main experience with Geneva.

But it is only the beginning of the journey. I stay in Geneva only a few days, to get reoriented and to see a place I’ve wanted to visit since I was a child. Then it is on south into France, to the Pyrenées, for a longer, more intimate leg of the journey. It is still far away, but already I can make out the faint calling of the mountains. Perhaps I will find her there, where Hercules left her, broken and betrayed, and all alone. Or perhaps there will finally be peace for her, when I hear the echo of her name, Pyrene. It is a beginning. I have my pack, my shoes, my camera, and my eyes. For a month I want nothing more.

Geneva Jet D'Eau
The famous Jet d’Eau on Lake Geneva.
Geneva Old Town Street Restaurant
Noon street restaurants waiting for customers.
Geneva Parked Bicycles and Scooters in Old Town
Parked bicycles and scooters in Old Town of Geneva.
Geneva Old Town Façades
Old Town façades in Geneva.
Geneva Old Town Courtyard
View through the gate door into a Geneva Old Town courtyard.
Geneva Fair Hanging Out
Friends hanging out at the edge of Lake Geneva at the Geneva Summer Festival
Geneva Old Town Antiques Street
Small Geneva Old Town street with many antiques shops.
Geneva Lake Boat People
Tourists waiting for the Lake Geneva boat tour to get on the way.
Geneva Lake Faux Steamboat
Tourist faux-steamboat plying the waters of Lake Geneva.
Geneva Jardin du Anglais Mist
Strolling through the Jardin du Anglais alongside Lake Geneva
Geneva Old Town Lunch Tables
Lunch time outside in Old Town, Geneva.
Geneva Jardin du Anglais Timothy
Large Timothy growing in the Jardin du Anglais, beside Lake Geneva.
Geneva Lake Swans
Swans patrolling the edge of Jetée de Pâquis.
Geneva Women Chatting in Rue Basses
Women chatting in the Rue Basses area of Geneva.
Lake Geneva Marina
Sailboats moored at the Lake Geneva Marina
Geneva Lake Early Morning Lakeside
Early morning strollers taking a break beside Lake Geneva on Jetée de Pâquis.
Geneva Old Town Travel Antiques Store Window
Looking into the shop window of a Geneva Old Town travel antiques store.
Geneva Old Town Fountain
Fountain spilling water in Old Town Geneva.
Geneva Old Town Benches
Geneva Old Town tasteful bench graffiti.
Geneva Oak Tree Base
Oak tree base in the Parc de l’Observatoire, Geneva.
Geneva Museum of Natural History
View of the mammal diaramas in the Geneva Museum of Natural History.
Geneva Apartment Façade
Apartment façade in north Geneva, near the youth hostel.
Geneva Sparrow in the Youth Hostel
Sparrow stealing bread inside the Geneva Youth Hostel cafeteria.
Geneva Fair Sky Carousel
Spinning sky carousel at the Geneva Summer Festival
Geneva Fair Dance
Carefree spirits having a twirl at the Geneva Summer Festival.
Geneva Fair Carousel
Fathers watching their children on a car attraction at the Geneva Summer Festival.
Geneva Fair Water Bubbles
Children playing in water bubbles at the Geneva Summer Festival.
Geneva Fair Casino
Gamblers checking out slot machines at the Geneva Summer Festival.
GenevaFair Picking Hello Kitty.
Father accompanying his daughter buying a toy at the Geneva Summer Festival.
Geneva Old Town Waiting Dog
Spitz waiting for someone to return in Old Town, Geneva.
Geneva To France Street Sign
Geneva street signs pointing directions to France.
Categories
Japan: Living Journal Life In

The Sound of Summer Evenings

With temperatures now up at 37 to 38 C and humidity draining all will from your willingness it is nice to have some kind of agent that might buffer the effects of the heat. Here in Japan sounds have traditionally stepped in to make a psychological difference when the thermometer is about to burst. The most obvious ones are the wind bells that people hang up outside their windows and the bamboo fountains that fill up and drop to the rock base below, where they make a distinct “PUNK” sound, sort of like a hollow wooden replication of a bat hitting a baseball. Japanese also like the sound of suzumushi, a kind of ground dwelling tree cricket whose song sounds like a zithering bell. There are also the calls of bush warblers and oblong-winged katydids, jungle crows and, of course, bubbling streams. But my favorite sound of all, and one that fills me with melancholy and remembrance every time I walk along the paths among the rice paddies while swatting mosquitoes on my legs, is that of the Higurashi zemi, the evening cicada. For me it is one of the most beautiful and haunting sounds in the world.

Higurashi Songs

Categories
Hiking Journal Mont Blanc: Travel Travel Walking

TMB Journey- Part 3

Bonhomie Evening Peak

All summer the miasma of diabetes had wrung havoc from my legs, rendering me at times incapable of taking a step without excruciating stabs of pain shooting through my thighs. So as the Tour of Mont Blanc trip loomed before me I worried that there was no possible way I was going to be able to complete the journey. The first steps up the foothills to the southwest of the Mont Blanc Massif filled me with apprehension, for the further I ventured away from connections with towns and up into the wilder region of the mountains the greater the risk of getting stuck up there. I had to grip my shoulder straps tightly and set my heart for the distance, telling myself I could do this and that I wasn’t going to let diabetes defeat my love of mountain walking.

Peter Doppelgänger
Tetes Nord de Fours
Going Back to Old Ways

All throughout the foothills surrounding the Mont Blanc range, especially in France and Switzerland, young families have returned to the villages to bring new life back to the old chalets and byways.

Aiguilles de la Pennaz
My Nearing Bonhomme

I moved much slower than I would normally have walked in days past, but, in spite of being out of breath and falling behind everyone along the way, the hills and slopes rolled by and by mid-afternoon I found myself gazing at the vista of the alpine crags.

Big Climb Near Bonhomme

The mountains grew bigger and bigger, almost frighteningly so, with a mass and ominousness that I had never experienced with the high mountains in Japan. At once both a sense of dread mixed with unutterable joy nagged at the back of my mind. It was all still too new to get lost in; even my photos felt tentative, as if trying out a grander horizon.

Last Climb First Day
Alpine Violets
End of Winter

As the late afternoon sun began to approach the line of peaks to the west and I still hadn’t reached the refuge where I hoped to stay for the night and no one else was in sight, I began to lose heart that I would make it. Clouds were gathering and it looked like rain. Breathing heavily I topped one rise and came upon this memorial to winter. Out of breath I plopped down on an outcropping and laughed like a man drunk.

Bonhomme Sheep

The Refuge de Bonhomme sat above a tumbling valley resplendent with emerald green grass on every rounded slope. Upon setting my pack down and scanning the panorama below, I witnessed the famed alpine sheep seething across a distant peak. For the first time I could picture the landscape the Heidi so adored.

Bonhomme Walkers 1
Bonhomme Ibex 1

All my life I had dreamed of glimpsing Ibex. They represented an almost deity-like symbol of the remote and legendary world of the Alps, a place where only intrepid mountaineers and hardy shepherds could venture. So when I finished my dinner and glimpsed a lone Ibex tossing his horns along a dark ridge, I grabbed my camera and stalked outside as fast as caution allowed. The Frenchman, Sebastien, who had befriend me over a beer, laughed and cried out, “What’s the hurry? They’re so tame you’re guarantied to see one! I just wonder about that bright red windshirt you’re wearing, though!”

Bonhomme Ibex 2
Bonhomme Walkers 2
Bonhomme Figure
Bonhomme Ibex 3
Bonhomme Meal 1

The refuge was so different from what you get in Japan. People sat around meeting one another and welcoming people they didn’t know. Two refuge staff members brought out guitars and sat on the kitchen counter singing songs to candle light. Outside night fell, turning the world blue while a powerful wind howled across the rooftop.

Bonhomme Distant Peak

I fell asleep to the pattering of rain against the bedroom window and the rise and fall of Sebastien’s breathing. The stout wooden walls felt solid in the mountain air and the bed a safe haven. I slept so deeply that I cannot remember that night.

Grass Chapieux
Descent Chapieux
Chapieux Puff

One thing I discovered as I walked was that you were never far away from at least a hamlet. To my surprise the Alps in Japan were much wilder and required that one be a lot more self-sufficient. I was able to buy fresh Tambe cheese and still-warm baguette at a local bakery near the bus stop here in Chapieux.

Chapieux Bus Stop
Villes des Glaciers
Villes des Glaciers Rest Stop

My first glimpse of an alpine glacier came here in Villes des Glaciers. At one time the glacier must have held an otherworldly spell over the village below, but today so much of it had melted away that mostly only orange hued rock remained. Throughout the walk I saw clearly that all the glaciers had melted away to but a fraction of their former grandeur. It was humbling to such powerful forces of nature burned away to nothing.

Aiguilles des Glaciers
Categories
Europe: Travel Hiking Journal Mont Blanc: Travel Travel Walking

TMB Journey- Part 2

Aig du Midi

Trying to keep up with developing the photographs for the blog really takes up a lot of time, especially the 800 or so images I took during my European trip last summer. I’m about a third of the way through the collection and hopefully can now get the images up to go along with more frequent posts. But I really have to find another way to work with the images, featuring fewer of them in the blog posts and more of them in a gallery. For now I’ll post what I have…

Dark rain clouds had followed me from central Switzerland and by the time I reached Martigny at the western edge of the country both the apprehension of nearing the might of the Alps and the prospect of crossing over into another country had manifest itself in the heaviness of the rain and the dimness of the daylight. There was a train I had to transfer to but in the rush to run down the stairs to the other platform I had accidently thrown away, along with my lunch garbage, my month-long Swiss Railpass. I realized my mistake moments before the train I had just disembarked from took off and, thinking that I had left the pass on the train, I ran back and jumped on the train, only to be trapped on board as the doors closed behind me. There was no pass on board and I panicked over someone possibly having stolen it. When the conductor came strolling down the aisle he laughed when he saw me, admonishing me for not having gotten off the train to make my transfer. He was sympathetic with the loss of my pass though, and offered to write me for free a ticket to my Chamonix destination. He then wrote up a new schedule for train transfers, but saying that I would arrive quite late in Chamonix. Resigned, I sat on the train till the last station and then rode it back to Martigny. The rain had redoubled, roaring outside the train window and filling the landscape with a depressing gloom. I felt really far away from home.

Luck would have it that back at the Martigny platform I discovered my rail pass inside the trash bin where I had thrown my lunch bag away. Relieved I crossed to the other platform again and found the cogwheel train that would climb up to Chamonix. Other walkers already filled half the seats, sitting with their packs balanced on their knees. I found a place between a gang of young teenagers from Britain. When the train lurched to a start they proceeded to smoke cigarettes and bombard the compartment with shockingly lewd stories and much-too-knowledgeable recounts of experiments with strong drugs. They were the noisiest people on the train and made it hard to concentrate on the passing scenery outside.

As the train gained altitude the cold set in. Even the train conductors wore winter jackets and stood on the platforms along the way swinging their arms to stay warm.

Chamonix huddled in a deep grayness, shot through with a wall of torrential rain. The rain was so strong it hushed everyone as they emerged from the station. The streets were deserted except for a few stragglers heading for the tourist information center in the center of the town. I followed these lone individuals and managed to get into the tourist center just before it closed. All the hotels were booked and those that had a room or two available were far too expensive for me. One place, however, a backpacker’s lodge called “Ski Station” took in travellers who had little money and who didn’t mind sharing rooms. THe tourist center agent got me a room there and then gave me directions to the nearest bank machine.

Here is where everything went wrong. I tried to use my American Express card, only to find that the bank didn’t take Amex. I had just enough money for one day of food and not enough for paying for lodging. Concerned I wandered around town seeking every ATM I could find and each one refused my American Express card. I ever stepped into a hotel and asked if they might change money there, but they, too, told me that they didn’t take American Express. After about the eighth bank machine I began to panic. With my need to take insulin and then necessity to eat afterwards I couldn’t afford not to have money. When nothing worked I walked up the steep hill in the back of the town to the backpacker’s lodge and presented myself to the caretaker, an elderly woman with an angelic smile and quiet demeanor. I explained my circumstances and, without pausing, she said, “No need to worry. You look tired and wet and are obviously a traveller. Put your pack down, choose a bed, and get yourself dried off. I’ll lend you a little money so you can eat.” Then she looked directly into my eyes, “Just promise me you’ll try to pay me back as soon as you can, okay?”

I was astounded! Hospitality still existed! What travellers dream of. I thanked her so profusely that she laughed and said, “Now you’re making me regret what I said! Go get dried off!”

I changed into dry clothes and then headed down into town to get something to eat. I found a small Italian restaurant in a tiny side street and ordered a cheap pizza with a beer. The effect of the fear of not having money still coursed through me and eating the pizza was like floating through a dream. All around me sat families and couples who laughed and reveled in tabletops of food and the sound of clinking glass and utensils rang in the yellow light of the lamps. I ate my fill, paid up, and strolled back to the lodge. The lights in my room were out already and I undressed in silence, pulled the rough wool blanket over me, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Ski Station Chamonix 2

The backpacker’s lodge, Ski Station, where I found kindness and selfless hospitality.

Aig du Midi

First view of the Alps on that bright, sunny, following morning. They were so high I had trouble believing they were real.

Day Walk Chamonix

The form and flora of the hills surrounding Chamonix town reminded me so much of the Japan Alps that it was like deja vue. Only the fauna, like ants and butterflies gave away the difference, and of course the sheer height of the peaks above.

Les Houches Start TMB

The start of the Tour de Mont Blanc began as a quiet climb through early morning mists above Les Houches, southwest of Chamonix.

Stepping Onto the Trail Above Les Houches
Categories
Europe: Photos Europe: Travel Journal Mont Blanc: Travel Travel

TMB Journey- Part 1: Veils

Zürich Boys

I landed without wings right in the middle of a faraway city, Zürich. I brought with me images from childhood, of green foothills towered over by shining peaks and corner shops selling chocolate and watches. Almost as if waking from a long sleep I took to the streets and felt as if I was peering through a window. I walked for hours that first day, letting myself get lost in the side streets and unplanned water’s edges.

Zürich Sailboats

I hadn’t expected short sleeves and burning sunshine and crowds worshipping the light or deeply suntanned numbers of men and women with beautifully toned bodies. They bobbed past me while I stared at them in surprise. And smiles everywhere. In one afternoon the stereotype of the dour Swiss evaporated. Like a benediction after the furtiveness that you nurture in the trains and sidewalks of Japan, the quick smiles and acknowledgement of women passing me reawakened that sense of interactive street life that I so missed in Japan.

Zürich Bridge

It might be postcard perfect, but there is something to be said for cities that step beyond mere convenience and practicality. Walking here was a joy; even in the city you could feel as if it was a place meant for people to appreicate their presence there. Everywhere there were seats to lounge on, coffee shops to stop and unwind in, views to look out at to remind you of where you were located. Unlike Tokyo where you would never know that the ocean its right at your doorstep until you round a corner and find it there, almost as an afterthought, here the hills and the river and the big lake hold pride of places. You could tell that the inhabitants loved what they had. The water in the lake was clean enough to swim in, and proven by the hundreds of sunbathers who had crossed over to the platforms floating a hundred meters away from the shores.

Zürich Swans

Jetlag slowed me to an aimless stroll and with the sun beating down it took me a while to count the strange coins when I bought a mineral water and a bockwurst sandwich. Japanese kept springing out instead of German, but even then the Swiss German sounded garbled and oddly gutteral, even for German. Luckily just about everyone spoke perfect English, so I allowed myself some lapses in kick-starting my German again.

Zürich Buildings 1

It took a while for my head to begin swiveling into photography mode, where my eyes begin to sink into the light around me and scenes present themselves one after the other, often before I am aware of what I am looking at. When I can let go like this walking with a camera turns a place almost into glimpses of streams of consciousness. The world grows incandescent and full of meaning, and even the lowliest flake on a wall holds the weight of the world within itself.

Zürich Cafe 1

Like most places in Switzerland tourists overrun all the prettiest areas. As I walked about I wondered how the Swiss could put up with the constant intrusion. I don’t think I would be so hospitable if strangers were continually tromping up and down the street outside my window.

Zürich Façade 1

Humans painted everything red in Switzerland. They even wore the color on their hats and shirts. I never saw so many flags hung out of windows and draped from flagpoles, not even in conservative America. I never imagined Switzerland as a nationalistic country, but without even having heard anyone speak about it the Swiss never let you forget where you were.

Zürich Cafe 2

I love to get lost and let the turns in an alley or trail surprise me. In the old part of a city like Zürich the walkways are narrow and crooked and sometimes you literally brush up against the walls as you navigate. When you look ahead at a certain unusual light and follow your nose, often you come upon gems of courtyards and secret, tiny cafés.

Zürich Hotel 1

Europeans take their eating and their time to talk very seriously. At noon all the shops but the restaurants close down and don’t reopen until two-thirty or three. As a boy in Germany it was always a difficult time to get through because I always wanted to go rushing outside after lunch and burn up energy, but my grandparents insisted that I stay in the living room and take a nap on the couch. It was much the same here in Switzerland; I wondered what Japanese or American tourists would think, with their inability to stay still and wait.

Zürich Street

The popular tourist spots always exhaust me after a while and for the time I stayed in Zürich I often took refuge in the alleys and out-of-the-way hills. Here I could watch the local populace go about their daily lives in peace. Since these walkways were so small and narrow cars never passed through and the tranquility gave me an inkling of what cities must have been like thre hundred years ago.

Zürich Train Station

I would have wandered Zürich for a week, but I had come to go walking in the Alps. So, after three days of rewinding my clock I headed off to the train station to take the train west.
___________________

I’ve only begun to work on the 850 photographs I brought back. Looking through them and working with PhotoShop on them I’m beginning to find a few that I really like. To think that I was honestly considering not bringing the camera because of the weight!

Categories
Europe: Travel Hiking Journal Mont Blanc: Travel Travel

Alpine Journey 8: Glacial Creep

Yesterday evening I set foot back in Chamonix and ended the eleven day walk. The actual walking time was nine days, which is one day shorter than the usual routine. Upon seeing Chamonix from high up on the col overlooking the valley I knew that I had come full circle and that soon I’d be back in the “real” world. The thing is that it doesn’t feel like a real world at all, but like unnecessary complications and undue worries and too many choices and an unhealthy concentration on things that are unimportant. During the last two weeks I was able to filter out those things which occupy too much of one’s time and about which we all worry too much about, and concentrate on things like how good something you eat tastes, the wholesomeness of simply talking to another person, laughing with them, sharing worries and information about what you need to continue on, and revelling in their presence, immersing yourself in the logic of placing one footstep after the the next and moving forward within a landscape, exactly as we were designed. For the entire route I never once picked up my book and read anything. Nights were for sleeping and resting, days were to waking and using your body and to take moments to look around you. Of course, there is more needed to survive, but I really wonder if we’ve loaded ourselves down with way too much gear, trudging through our lives with nothing but thoughts of how to add more gear to the pack and how to make money to purchase more of this heavy gear. It’s insane. And to allow oursleves to be subjected to others who seem to assume that they have a right to place themselves above us and order us to live according to their values, who think of nothing but possessions and assume that all of us must dedicate our lives to that. Exactly what is wrong with us?

After the evening the other day when the doldrums hit me and I wrote about being sad, I returned to the campsite and encountered two British rock climbers who invited me into their tent for a beer. We eneded up talking most of the evening and their sense of humor really cheered me up (I love the way the British counter hardship or adversity with laughter). We got together the next day, too, and sat in a pub talking for hours about problems with young British kids, about equipment for walking, about global warming, movies, good places to travel, environmental education, the best kinds of cheese, and again about outdoor equipment. I left Champex with a feeling a contentment and completion that belied the loneliness I had felt earlier.

Tuesday turned out to be a miserable day in terms of weather. The climb up to Le Bovine Pass just kept getting colder and colder and by the time I arrived at the tiny mountain hut at the top my fingers were numb and everything was wet and freezing. So when I opened the mountain hut door and found a glowing atmosphere of walkers sitting around a wood stove and eating the wonderful food the proprietor was cooking for everyone it was like, as a fellow walker claimed later that day, “Opening a present.” We all sat in there cupping our mugs of hot chocolate between our palms and praising the warmth. For lunch I ordered a “roesti”, a Swiss mountain specialty of pan-fried potatoes mixed with cheese, onions, tomatoes, and egg. none of us wanted to head out into the cold again.

Everything was wet again, of course, within an hour of heading down the other side of the mountain. Because the trail passed through several mountain ranches the trail had been trampled into a sea of mud through which I had to trudge. I had forgotten to take my afternoon insulin while in the hut, so my legs started cramping up and walking became really painful. I finally reached the campsite in Le Peuty, near Trient, at about seven in the evening, and there no one there, just a wet, lonely field of drenched grass with a small shelter under which to eat. I thought I’d have to spend a cold night alone here, when I discovered the fireplace in the shelter and the proprietor of the campsite drove by just then, offering dry wood for the fireplace. I fairly danced for joy at the prospect of being able to sit in front of a roaring fire, eating dinner. Just then two women… actually the same women who had camped above my site at Champex and who had arrived earlier in the day at the mountain hut at Bovine just as I was leaving… arrived on the scene, also dripping wet and worried about the idea of a cold wet night. We teamed up and outfitted the shelter so that it was protected from the wind and rain, hung up our belongings to dry, set up the wooden table in the middle for a nice dinner of couscous and chili con carne, and lit a warm, dancing fire. We spent half the evening praising the fire and voicing our joy at its warmth. After a filling and delicious dinner (it was just chili con carne and couscous, but it tasted like the best meal you could buy at an expensive restaurant) we sat back sipping tea and talking about our dreams and traveling in distant lands. WE all agreed that this eveing would be one that we’d remember for the rest of our lives.

Yesterday was glorious. The sun broke through and after climbing the long and steep trail up to Col de la Balme, I crested the last high point of this journey and came face-to-face with Mont Blanc again in all its glory, floating on the sunlit morning clouds. Walkers from all over sat with their backs against the Col de la Balme mountain hut, soaking in the sunshine and basking in the wonder of the distant mountains. The two women sat next to me and we cut slices from the bread we had brought with us and sat laughing at the difference between last night and today.

Then it was time to saw good bye. They headed on further toward the place I had started the journey, while I headed down to the valley, to Le Tour, and beyond to Chamonix. The end of the walk. And a mixed bag of sadness and relief. Soon I’d have to return to Japan and to my miserable little apartment and the oppressive job I had gotten myself mixed up in. But it had been a wonderful walk, one that would remain one of the best memories of my life, in spite of hardships. But that is what makes such journeys so memorable and special. I got to know a new place, made some great new friends, and revived an old ghost inside me that I’ve needed to talk to for a long time. I’m ready to go home, for now.

I’ll be in Europe for another week, visiting Interlakken and Zermatt. I’d love to go to Italy, but I just don’t have the money to travel around a lot any more. Besides, Italy needs its own proper stretch of time in order to appreciate the right way. Three or four days is just not enough.

I’m happy with what I got and found. And that’s all you can really ask from a good journey.

Categories
Japan: Living Journal Life In Technology

Cold Feet

Takao snow street
Street leading up to Takao Temple and Mount Takao after the yearend snowfall.

Takao snow street
Street leading up to Takao Temple and Mount Takao after the yearend snowfall.

At the other end of the year right about now the sultry Japanese summer heat invades homes like a giant, lazy, fat cat, nudging its way through the doors and windows and prostrating itself on the straw mats (tatami ) and linoleum floors with the sole purpose of draining everyone of life. That is what, traditionally, Japanese houses are designed for, to induce as much breathing throughout the house as might entice the cat to dissipate, a passive effort to encourage Cheshire-ism.

It doesn’t always work… my first floor apartment, not at all traditional except for the tatami in the living and bed rooms, acts like an isolation tank (in more ways than one!); you open the front door and an invisible wall of lugubriousness, sort of like that watery interface you see in the jump gates of the television show “Star Gate”, greets you… but the idea is sound: leave a space under the ground floor where the sun doesn’t hit and create a katabatic air space, keep the floor over this space perforated enough for the free passage of air, and create a heat sink space in the attic of the building, to which warm air is sucked. The idea is to draw the cool air out of the space beneath the house up into the attic, where it is supposed to dissipate. And it works very well in traditional, thatched roof farm houses.

The trouble arises in mid-January, when the deep freeze sets in and that cold air space beneath the house continues to crank away nice, juicy drafts through the floor and tatami, especially when my (noisy and much-disliked… I have yet to discover exactly why it is necessary to move the furniture around at 3:00 in the morning every day) upstairs neighbor cranks up his heater (which creates a racket outside my living room window with the squeaky and misaligned fan drumming away) and does a fine job of heaving all my precious warm air up into his place, and replacing it with the cold air from under the house. I didn’t realize until last week that the cold air actually streams through the tatami like spring water welling up from a sandy creek bed; I could feel the cold air pooling around my outstretched hand.

We only have one tiny electric, infrared heater to heat the spaces. Our Dutch oil heater started smoking last year when I turned it on, and we haven’t been able to afford to replace it. Normally this little heater is enough to warm up the small room it is placed in, as long as the door is kept shut. If it gets a little colder we use the spare sleeping bag and our fleece jackets. We’ve also covered the living room floor with a closed cell foam sheet and two layers of fluffy carpets. And normally that works… for when we are awake and spending time in the same room. It saves on electricity.

But when I am working in my study, the cold works its way through the floor boards and sends me running for my big, midwinter down jacket. When I breathe out white breath billows across the computer screen. Sometimes my fingers are so cold that I can barely type on the keyboard. And since infrared filament heaters are dangerous to keep on at night, the preparations for sleeping at night resemble pitching camp: dress up in fleece layers, don my fleece cap, fluff up two layers of down pillows, prop up the closed cell foam ground mat against the three layers of curtains to stop the draft, slip under a thick fleece blanket and lie on top of three layers of fleece sheets underneath, and finally pull the huge down quilt over us. If someone would walk in on us at night while we slept they would come across a huge lump on top of the bed, with no evidence whatsoever of inhabitants. Even our breathing is absorbed by the profoundness of the layers.

Waking up provides a wonderful exercise in will power. You open your eyes and wonder if it is light or dark outside because the curtains are so thick that no light passes through. You tentatively reach your hand into the world outside your cocoon of warmth, instantly recognizing this environment is hostile, not unlike that of Mars. You pat around until you locate the bed light, switch it on, and let out an experimental breath: snowfall… ice storm … whiteout … You imagine having slept all night on a block of dry ice. And that is precisely what your foot tells you when you poke it out and set it down on the floor. The temptation is to pull it right back in, like a snail’s eye stalk, but it’s time to get ready for work and you want to beat the crush of the Tokyo rush hour trains and you’d also like to get in a mug of tea and check the e-mail… so out you jump, dancing about the tatami like an Irish dancer, rush to the toilet, let out a yelp as you bare your bottom, dance back out to the shower, turn on the gushing, smoking river of heat, dash to the kitchen to set the kettle to boil, pop two slices of bread into the microwave-oven, and scamper back to the shower for a few minutes of revitalization. You turn up the water heat high enough to turn your skin blooming red before breaking the bathroom door open just long and wide enough to snatch the towel and slipping it into the sauna of the shower stall. Dried off you can safely negotiate the sub-arctic temperatures and dismiss the imaginary penguins tottering about the hallway, to do your shaving and prepare the tea.

But it doesn’t last long. Like the shadowy ghouls in the movie “Ghost”, the cold creeps back again and uses the soles of your feet to reacquaint you with the concept of stack ventilation. So back you go to mouse dancing, slapping on layers like a pancake artiste, until all contact with the outside world is reduced to the circle around your face and the inconvenience of your fingers. You stoke your core with piping hot tea and toast spread with a thin film of butter, and then you’re off, into the purveyor of all this defensiveness: the out of doors.

But of course, it is warmer outside than inside. As you march away toward the train station you unbutton your coat and let the morning sunshine take a peek in. You don’t look back; the suction itself might be too much.

Categories
Hiking Journal Outdoors Trip Reports: Hiking Ultralight Backpacking

Autumn Rains

Komorebi Kinpu
Rising mist an hour after a huge rain storm hit my campsite near the summit of Mt. Kinpu during the night.

Komorebi Kinpu
Rising mist an hour after a huge rain storm hit my campsite near the summit of Mt. Kinpu during the night.

For more than three months it’s been pouring rain nearly every day throughout Japan. What I had promised myself would be a summer of copious walking along ridges, turned into days in my tent waiting out downpours and a summer washed away with thundering rivers and mountain sides giving way. During my climb of Mt. Kinpu in Chichibu, west of Tokyo, with a precious two-weeks of vacation lined up, I thought perhaps that surely the gods were frowning upon me, seeing that every single weekend since the first green blush of spring brought me up square against a wall of rain. It was as if someone was trying to tell me that there were things left unfinished back home and I had better sort them out before taking the leisure to go traipsing around in the hills.

The Kinpu walk was the first venture out of doors since my big design project ended, and being out of shape from too much computer worship gravity played havoc with my knees and wind. I ended up thirty minutes from the summit in a small clearing of larches and huge, rounded boulders. Most of the larches had been blown clean of their lives so that when darkness fell and no one disturbed the spooky stillness, the skeletons of the trees seemed to close in around me like goblins. I was using my homemade camping hammock set up with a tarp, and though the system worked as I had hoped, personally I just didn’t seem to fit in very well with the cloth wrapped around me like a taco. I ended up lowering everything to the ground and sleeping with my eye cocked up at the voluminous sail of the tarp breathing over me.

Just when I was beginning to relax with the tiny noises, like dripping leaves and creaking branches, and to drift off into slumber, the tarp flexed, then stretched as a wind barreled into camp, followed by a volley of raindrops. Within fifteen minutes the storm was howling overhead among the fingers of the dead trees and the naked rocks outside the copse of trees. Luckily I had picked a good site, with only tendrils of the storm swirling among the tree trunks and a brace of rhododendrons blocking the brunt of the wind. I dragged myself out of the sleeping bag, switched on the white arm of my headlight, and found myself staring into a soup of fog.

The roar of the storm and the ominous swaying of the trees kept me awake the rest of the night. I lay reading Tim Cahill’s “A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg” and stopping to ponder the mentality of those who willfully venture out into such predicaments as the one I was presently engaged in. I mean, there I was, the storm and the dark forest beating down on my courage like a hammer, loneliness enveloping my earlier smirking at the self-sufficiency of my backpack, and worries about the exposed ledges I had to scramble past in the morning nagging at my confidence, and I had to ask myself, “Exactly what pleasure am I getting out of packets of freeze-dried food, a flimsy skin of nylon between me and the gods, and shoes sopping with dew?” As the dawn gradually enlightened me to the true nature of the storm, I huddled in my rain jacket on the log beside my tarp, brewing cafe latte and spooning through cold granola with milk. When a warbler flickered onto a rhododendron branch right beside the tarp, looking for all the world as if I had plundered his backyard, I raised my spoon in greeting, only to be cold-shouldered by a warber’s equivalent of a huff, with which he flitted off into the fog.

I had five days ahead of me, but the storm didn’t let up, rain was pelting down, and the wind was engaged in a wrestling match with the boulders. I broke camp and started heading toward the summit of Mt. Kinpu, but halted in my tracks. I must have stood there for fifteen minutes, undecided, occasionally peering ahead and then glancing back. I took in the grey trees, the ankle deep mud in the path, the tips of the trees bending in the wind, and something inside me drooped. Not today, I told myself. Not while I had doubts.

So I turned back and started down the mountain. The first part had me bracing against the punches of the storm, leaning on my trekking pole as I negotiated the slippery boulders and tangle of tree roots. My rain jacket and windshirt were off by the time I reached the lap of the mountain where I could relax a bit and make a steady descent. I stopped beside a hoary old larch to pack away the rainwear when, like opening a package, sunlight sliced through the clouds and inundated the forest with the first bright light in days. It was like steaming gold. I stood transfixed, as if a tight shirt had popped open, before I could gather my wits and fumble my camera out of its bag. Streams of sunlight cast through the branches. And I was breathing with each breach in the clouds.

Five hours later I was walking along a logging road sweating from the sun, the sleeves of my t-shirt rolled up, and late summer insects singing beside the road. I looked back and saw Mt. Kinpu lazing away among the summer clouds. Maybe the mountain god, like me, just needed some relief. Whatever the reason, even a short walk like this would prove to remain with me a long, long time.

Categories
Journal Nature

The Last Day of Summer

Ptarmigan South Alps
Ptarmigan in summer plumage on the lookout, Notori Peak, South Japan Alps, Japan 1994.

Ptarmigan South Alps
Ptarmigan in summer plumage on the lookout, Notori Peak, South Japan Alps, Japan 1994.

Appropriately it is raining today. A sprinkly, spitting kind of rain that crackles upon the leaves, not a real threat to open windows or lithe grass stalks. The extended family of paper wasps, though, that have been building their little queendom under the lattice screen at the side of the garden, huddle against the paper of their nest and moon at the grey scene, too chilled to make the effort to check on their young.

An hour ago the earth jiggled a violent mashed potato as she shivered… perhaps she was still wearing that light summer dress.

The jungle crows seem to have contracted a mass phlegm attack as they guard the telephone poles and wires above my apartment… every now and then they have been clearing their throats in the most oyaji-like, and un-crow-like, way (“oyaji” is Japanese for “middle-aged” man. It has derogatory connotations, with images such as a predilection for young women, getting drunk too much, orneriness and bull-headedness, conservatism, balding, puns, even harking up phlegm and pissing at the sides of streets… it is an image of older men that does them a great injustice, but it is a big part of Japan’s popular culture right now).

Bench warmer leaves of the false acacia and zelkova trees in my garden have started blushing yellow, the misfits at the lunch table.

Mars, who has been showing off in the night sky all summer, will have to sit back behind the cloud curtains tonight. Even stars need to take a break from the greatest show on Earth.

Me? It is as if a vaporous hand passed over my lips. I sit by the window gazing, mostly at the insistence of the falling rain. There is nothing to say. The thing to do is wait for nightfall and then, simply, fall asleep.