Day 4 – Hiking in Oze – shortgirls.net

I wake up in a dreary fog, it’s drizzling gently and mist hangs over the mountains. Breakfast is at 08:00 and it’s delicious and filling. In typical Japanese style there’s fruit, salad, protein, soup, and bread. There’s actually three types of bread, I love it.

The squeeze-mate was originally invented in Australia for tomato sauce, you know the thing I’m talking about that you get with meat pies. But Japan has taken it to the next level with a combined strawberry+margarine version that you can see on my breakfast plate. It is delicious on the croissant.

Now to my hiking plan; part of the problem is that driving in is not so easy. Ideally you want to get as close as possible to a trailhead then walk in from there, but the best trailheads aren’t reachable by car. Because it’s a protected wilderness area, some are only reachable by public bus or special taxis. And of course because it’s the off-season for tourism, good luck finding any of those.

I eventually find my way to Oshimizu No.2 Parking Lot where you can park and then walk in. It’s about midday by the time I set out, and I think it’ll be enough time if I hurry. If I can walk in and do a lap of the lake or something that’d be great, and if not then I’ll still be happy.

As it turned out, this was a slog. I had to settle for a lot less than I wanted to do, but I’m very pleased with it all the same. It was about 14.5km for the hike to the lakeside visitor centre and back, and there’s no way I could’ve done more than that in the time that I had – it took about five hours from start to finish.

The track is pretty well kept, clearly marked, and not overly strenuous. In truth I was hoping to see more of the area inside the park, in particular the marshland and lake, but it took all my time to just get in and out. You should definitely allocate more time (and have a better idea about your options for getting in there).

But that’s an afterthought, my problem now is time. The original plan was to get to Takayama this evening where I’ve booked a hotel, but as I got back from my hike and returned the rental car I realised it just wouldn’t be possible – there are simply no trains that can get me to Takayama tonight. During daylight hours it’s a 4-hour trip up through Nagano and Toyama, or maaaaybe I have a chance at a better serviced route back to Tokyo then west on the main Tokaido line, but that’s a 6-hour journey. FUUUUUUUUCK.

I’m running out of time and options. If I can’t get to Takayama then I’ll push as far as I can, but I still need a place to stay for the night. I can push further along the route, but arriving later and in a smaller town means it could be hard to get a room. I go for Nagano, it’s 95min away and a big enough city that I should be able to get a hotel. I ask the JR clerk for the next seat, and in a short while I’m back on the Toki superexpress.

I can use this time to find a hotel. Hotel, hotel… this place sounds fine. Linden Plaza is not far from Nagano station, and it shares a name with the developers that made that Second Life MMORPG.

I find a yakitori joint near my hotel and eat a lot of food. Today has been a good day in the end. Bless this place for doing QR code ordering, because I really can’t deal right now.

The whole place has the wooden hut vibe, it’s so cosy and I’d love to stay here and just enjoy the atmosphere instead of heading off

All the good stuff, it doesn’t look that big but it’s surprisingly filling

I love misty mornings like this

Hoshino is another lodge just down the road from Pokapoka, but there’s no desert here

In mountainous areas the towns tend to be built along the edges of the valley or in the valley. This valley had a cool looking bridge crossing over it

Another town on the way to Oshimizu, this photo was taken on a bridge over a steep gorge in Oze-Tokura

This is a map near the start of the hiking trail. Many maps are like this, and I’m not gonna complain about that fact it’s all in Japanese, but it’s just not very *helpful* without being able to parse all the labels. Is that blue outline on the right the lake? Or just a circular hiking path?? C’mon guys put Ozenuma lake in there!

First marker at Ichinose, I’m 3.2km from the starting point and it’s only been 50min. I’m feeling good

Second marker at Iwashimizu, it’s been 0.9km since Ichinose and another 25min

Phew we are gaining elevation like crazy, but the view is great

This is representative of part of the path near the top of the ridge, the steps/planks are not all there. It’s the steepest part of the section I walked, and you gain 100m of elevation in about 350m of progress (a 1-in-3.5 grade)

The path levels out and I think I’m reaching the top of the ridge, there’s duckboard now rather than intermittent steps

Made it! This is the top of the ridge, at 1762m elevation

More CineStill taken on the film camera

I think this is Hiuchi, one of the numerous peaks in the area

A map like this sure would’ve been useful a bit earlier! But it’s fine, I came from the bottom edge and reached the lake on the southern corner

There was this laminated sign hanging from a tree branch over the boardwalk at the lake, which thankfully I could juuuust translate with the google camera and spotty mobile reception. Really not something I wanted to see today!

The flora around he hiking paths is really pretty

This huge tree fell across the boardwalk and evidently they couldn’t move it, so they just… cut out a little notch

Base of a different tree that had fallen over

It’s the middle of May now and there’s still patches of snow and ice hanging around. Only in the shade though where the sun doesn’t get a chance to melt it away

Little stream that I passed while hiking back

Finally made it back! A bit shy of 5 hours for the round trip, of I think about 14km

My Garmin watch turned out to be useless for recording the whole thing as a hike because the battery is on its last legs – the first milestone to Ichinose wiped out the battery and it couldn’t keep recording. But it got the gist of the rest of the hike 😀

And now I’m off to Nagano, because I have some more specific sightseeing in mind…

It was about 22:30 when I checked into the hotel at Nagano and put my stuff down, but I’m in luck and can still get a good feed at a nearby yakitori joint

Bless them, this place does QR code ordering so I don’t have to try and point at 10 different things on the menu to a poor waiter who just wants to finish his shift. This was a solid meal after a long day

What I’d do differently next time

I’d love to come back and do this again, but next time better prepared. I’d change a few things:

Come during tourism season for better accessibility. Or maybe not, but the main thing is…
Find out where the trailheads really are. Some more google searching has come up with a few useful articles in English, but you still need to piece it all together yourself
Find out which cabins are available and book one to stay in overnight, I think it’d be really nice!

I was aiming for Hatomachitoge trailhead but couldn’t find it, either because it’s not reachable by car, or the road is closed. I didn’t spend too much effort trying to read the signage, but the road closure that I did see was really unclear. I settled for Oshimizu in the end, but it’d be much easier if there were real maps for this stuff. If I’d headed directly for Oshimizu that would’ve been fine too.

These links seem kinda helpful:

This has the classic abstract map for key locations around Oze: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7440.html
This map shows trailheads and the interior paths of the national park, but no detail about actually reaching the trailheads: https://oze-fnd.or.jp/en/rg/
TEPCO (the power company) has a big presence in the area due to their hydro plants, so they have this nice little brochure telling you about the park: https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/rp/oze/pdf/oze01.pdf

Furi’s stats

Physical: ★★☆☆☆ Satisfying but today was a hard slog. I really need a shower
Mental: ★★☆☆☆ Frazzled, but I’m pulling through for myself