The first time I did the Motoyama Route was one early spring, at the tail end of April as the Golden Week holidays started. The summer trail was still under a meter or more of snow, but it was firm enough to walk on without needing snowshoes and relatively easy going. Enough people had been up to leave clear tracks to mark the way, though as the weather was perfect it was simple enough to follow the ridge up while enjoying the amazing views. Only at the top did we begin to occasionally break through the snow where it loosely covered the creeping pine bushes.
At the summit another climber was listening to his radio (it’s quite common for hikers to play radios to keep bears away). By chance, I just caught a brief news item about a Spanish solo hiker who had been rescued by helicopter from the central Daisetsuzan mountains after getting lost attempting a traverse. My ears pricked up since the very same guy had contacted me a few weeks before asking for information. Not knowing his skills and experience (and not having done it myself in winter) I had just mentioned that it was still proper winter up there at this time of year and potentially a serious undertaking, but I never heard back. It turned out that he had got lost but was able to inform his family, who then contacted the Spanish Embassy who in turn alerted mountain rescue. I just hope they didn’t present him with a large bill ……
My next trip up the Motoyama Route was in late autumn. This time it was harder going thanks to some early snow that had since melted but turned the trail into a muddy and slippery ordeal over the tangled roots of the sasa bamboo up on the broad ridge. As the sasa grows above head height on both sides of the trail, we didn’t even have any views to uplift the spirits so we slogged on up to the summit ridge. Here, though, perfect weather treated us again to the panorama of peaks near and far. After negotiating the sasa trail once again on the descent we enjoyed some late autumn colours as we dropped back down to the trailhead.
