There was a light but wetting rain falling when we woke up this morning at 1:30am. Chris, Ben, and Timbah had slept under the stars the night before and were now all wrapped up in fly-sheets on the stony beach. I sat in the vestibule of our tent and hurriedly boiled some water for Haidee and my breakfast and coffee. It felt altogether a rushed and dismal sort of start to the day, but the mood was relatively upbeat, despite the weather.
Today, after two days of dead-calm weather in the lee side of Shiretoko Peninsula, we would find out what a moderate 15km/h breeze from the west would do to the sea state.
It was 3:50am before we finally had enough light in the sky to push off from the beach. Even then, we were paddling into a gloomy sea, clouds hanging low over the cliffs.
It was a messy sea. Windchop coming from the open Okhotsk Sea to the west, and reflective waves coming from the shoreline.
The saving grace was that there wasn’t any wind where we were, closer to the shore. Here and there, small waterfalls fell to the shoreline.
It was a heads down paddles forward sort of start to the day.
With the sea building slowly, I had hoped we could make a sneaky stop at 19-go banya fishing hut, one of the largest banya on Shiretoko Peninsula. Their old, dilapidated ramp, with exposed rebar and crumbling concrete however, was awash with a heavy surf.
We continued paddling.
At one point, the team caught their breath by rafting up for a few moments.
Mostly everyone was smiles 🙂
Team-raft-bonding session over, we carried on.
We were now paddling along the special wilderness area, Rusha-chiiki. This is a special protection zone in the national park, where officially, shoreline access is heavily restricted to fishing operations, park staff, research groups, and kayakers in distress. I.e., it’s a “don’t land or camp there unless you really need to” sort of place.
At the mouth of the Rusha River, a large fishing-tourist vessel was rolling and pitching in the chop. I paddled over and asked what they were fishing for.
“Kafaruto-masu (pink salmon),” came the reply. “Still to early though, and we’re not catching anything.”
The sea was still building, and I decided it was time to get off the water for a break to watch it for a while, just to make sure we weren’t biting off more than we could chew. There was one spot where Shinya-san had marked as a suitable spot to escape from the water along this section of coast, where reefs protected the shoreline, about halfway between Ponputa River and Pombetsu River (around here). I decided we should stop there, as much of the rest of the coast, for the next 7km, was steep bouldery beaches.
We found the spot, and all landed safely behind the reefs.
We’d been paddling for about an hour and a half, so it was a welcome break to stretch the legs.
We hung out at the beach keeping warm and eating snacks for a few hours, waiting to see what the sea would do.
After a long break, the sea wasn’t looking any better.
Nor, however, was it looking any worse. It appeared as though the sea had built as much as it would today, and was now holding steady in a messy, lumpy sort of way. Very manageable and comfortable for 5/6ths of the team, and a suitable challenge for the remainder 1/6th. We re-launched the boats out through a minor surf and got on our way along the coast again.
The most bothersome factor in today’s paddle were the set net ropes, pulled taught from the shore, extending hundred of meters out to sea. The windchop and a building swell from the west meant that in places, these ropes would hang suspended in wave troughs. The trick was to make sure we didn’t paddle under those lines – a distinct possibility if one was unlucky.
Today was the longest distance we’d paddle in one day on this trip, about 18km. Towards the end of the paddle, we were entertained by two large waterfalls.
The first was Yoshipetsu-no-taki waterfall. This grand, tall waterfall had a couple of levels to it. Very picturesque.
“Let’s land and see if there are pools at the base of each drop!” suggested Ben.
The idea was appealing, but the landing looked sketchy, and we were hoping to land near Kamuiwakka Falls to escape the swell for a moment, so we opted to limit sketchy landings to just one sketchy landing today. Yoshipetsu-no-taki will be explored another day.
Just around the corner from Yoshipetsu-no-taki was a waterfall we’d been anticipating for a while – the world-famous in Hokkaido, Kamuiwakka Falls. Further up, the stream is a hot water spring stream, so Ben in particular was extremely excited by the possibility of experiencing a hot waterfall.
We made an awkward landing on the slippery, large, round rocks, and enjoyed being on land as a respite from the lively sea state.
A short walk to the falls gave us all we needed to know: The falls are not hot here.
They do, however, stain the bay yellow from all the sulphur that runs out from the falls. The sulfur also evidenced itself in our stinging eyes – spray from the waterfall was full of it. This area was home to a large sulphur mining operation until the end of WW2 (source).
We kept our stop at the falls brief. Officially, kayakers are asked not to land there (as per Shinya-san’s guide), mainly due to aesthetic concerns (according to information center staff, when I queried them about the reason). Many large tourist boats stop in the bay for photo opportunities, and woe be the tourist whose photo is dirtied by the presence of a gaggle of gaudy sea kayakers.
A little further on from Kamiwakka Falls, we passed Iroiro River, one of the campsites marked on Shinya-san’s guidebook. Ishida-san, another independent sea and mountain guide based on the Shiretoko Peninsula, was camped there today with three clients, waiting out the heavy chop.
It was no surprise they were staying put today. The chop out on the water was one thing…but the fierce breaking waves onto the shoreline were something else all together. I paddled in close enough to yell a greeting, and then carried on. We had met Ishida-san the day before we started our trip, and he had mentioned to me that we might bump into him along the way.
In the end, I got word from his wife (a Shiretoko Foundation staffer stationed at Rusa Field House) that they ended up hiking out of the Iroiro River campsite, bush-bashing up to the forestry road that leads to the Kamuiwakka stream parking lot. One of the clients needed to leave to catch a flight. Ishida-san would later return for the kayaks a few days afterwards.
From Iroiro River campsite, it was only 1.5km to our destination for the day, Mamushi-hama. ‘Hama’ in Japanese means ‘beach’, so in our complete ignorance, we were expecting great things from Mamushi Beach (despite ‘mamushi’ meaning pit viper). Adding to our great expectations of Mamushi-hama were the words Shinya-san penned about the campsite in his guidebook.
Mamushi-hama, literally Pit-viper Beach. A stony beach surrounded on two sides by cliffs, with Goko Cliffs to the south and Idashubetsu River to the north. Low probability of encountering brown bears here. As such, it’s a good camping location. Springwater is available at the base of the bluffs at the end of the beach towards Utoro. Beware of rockfall around the cliffs, including the spring. Pit vipers can sometimes be found sunning in bushland below the cliffs. Mamushi Beach is a relatively sheltered emergency escape option in the case of rough sea conditions. Best landing point is the Cape Shiretoko end of the cove.
With heads full of anticipation and excitement, we paddled the last 1km or so in increasingly lively sea conditions. Whereas the coastline to this point today had been quite soft (i.e., gravel and rocks), we were now getting into the hard-shore section of Shiretoko, where vast granite cliffs descend straight into the water. This means that all the incoming swell and wave energy gets reflected back into the sea with very little abatement of that energy.
This produced some extremely fun lumpiness closer to the cliffs. Not quite proper haystacks, but it was the engagement I (and certainly Timbah and Ben) had been looking for after a day of dull grey skies.
Lumpy play finished, we rounded the last corner into Mamushi-hama Cove. Mick and Chris were already there, having made the mad-dash to calmer waters to avoid the messy seas. Mick’s relief at having pushed past his comfort zone was palpable. I was again impressed with his grit in the face of fear.
The first thing that hit me was the grandeur of the place. A cathedral-like arch in the cliff-face, big enough to fit 10 cathedrals, stretched so high on the cliff that I had to lean back in my kayak seat to take it all in. Spring water flowed from cracks in the cliff. Vibrant green moss lined the floor of the arch. If this was not the most spectacular place to camp, I don’t know where would be.
The second thing that struck me about Mamushi-hama Cove, partly indicated by looks of muffled horror on Chris’s face, and partly indicated by his seeming reluctance to go ashore and by what I interpreted as a raised eyebrow on his forehead, was the apparent complete and utter lack of flat ground.
“We’re not f&%ckn sleeping here are we?” Chris quizzed me.
“I think we are,” I replied. “Let’s take a look.”
With all the chop, and despite some shelter from the swell due to the point at the northern end of the wide cove, there was a decent enough band of whitewater at the shoreline. I paddled in first (least concerned about my plastic boat), and hauled the heavy boat up away from the whitewater.
It was here that I was introduced to cove’s round, unstable large-watermelon-sized rocks, a.k.a. The Ankle-Breakers of Mamushi Beach.
About four in five rocks would be solid and trustworthy platforms for one’s steps. The other 20% were nature’s booby-traps, waiting to roll out from under you, conspiring to bruise ankles, toes, and backsides.
Case in point was when Chris was dragging Haidee’s boat up the bouldery slope. I was at the back of the boat, but hadn’t told him that. I gave the boat a shove just as he gave it a pull, sending him off balance. The rock he stepped on to catch his balance was one of the Conspirator Rocks (one of the troublesome 20%), and his index toe careened into one of the immovable 4/5 rocks.
“F$&%k!” he exclaimed.
I felt bad. But it was what it was. The “Officially the Most Challenging Place I’ve Slept” badge has been firmly awarded to Mamushi-hama.
With all the boats up on shore, I set about trying to stonemason and carpenter Haidee and me a passable platform to put our tent on.
Chris pinned his luck on not rolling off one of the only flat spots on the beach, a large almost-person-sized slab of flat-ish rock. His counter-balance tarp solution was admirable.
The weather was uncertain of itself. One moment, we’d have thin cloud cover that threatened to provide some well-needed heat to dry out sleeping bags and clothes. Another moment later, it was a misting rain. Timbah and Ben busied themselves with dinner prep, as did Haidee as I prepared our tent. Haidee had commandeered perhaps the more regal of sitting rocks. I could almost feel the envy reverberate through the crew – such rocks were in short supply and a coveted possession in Mamushi-hama.
The weather soon moved towards a more persistent misting rain.
“Do you think my sleeping bag is getting drier or wetter?” asked Ben.
The question felt more like a rhetorical, inner dialogue than an actual invitation for input. It was that hard to judge.
It was around then that we heard what sounded like rockfall behind us. But the sound was moving across the landscape, not down.
“That sounds like something stepping on vegetation,” said Timbah.
“Maybe it’s a deer,” proffered Haidee.
Shinya-san’s blurb about Mamushi-hama declared that bears were uncommon, so we weren’t expecting any bears here. But uncommon doesn’t mean unheard of.
“Oh snap, it is a bear,” said Timbah, “and it’s walking in the bushes past our camp.”
We all stood up and made noise. We didn’t want it to continue west along the cove because if it did, it would need to come back past us again to get out.
But that’s what it did. A young-ish looking bear, clearly wary of us, wandered brazenly past the back of our camp towards the cathedral arch.
“That’s really not ideal,” mused Ben.
Ben and Timbah had previously decided they would sleep under the arch that night and had already left their sleeping bags and mats there.
The bear was now walking away from us along the beach to the dead-end. Was it planning to swim along the shoreline? We’d seen a bear swim on this trip already, but it seemed a very lively sea for a bear to choose to go for a swim.
It dropped down to the shore, and scratched at seaweed, occasionally looking back at us.
After about 15 minutes of the bear appearing and disappearing among the boulders near the shore, it bolted up into the cathedral arch.
“I hope you guys don’t have any food up there,” cautioned Haidee in a worried tone.
The next sighting of the bear had us all scratching our heads. It appeared about 20m up on the cliff, on a small grassy ledge, and then proceeded to downclimb a near-vertical rocky face.
“It genuinely looks like it is trying its absolute hardest to avoid us,” proposed Haidee.
I’d read about bears climbing cliffs in Shiretoko to look for seagull eggs, and Shinya-san writes about seeing bears falling from cliffs doing so. That was my operating hypothesis in this situation. (Editor’s note: The birdwatcher in our midst (Haidee) informs me this is unlikely, as we were out of seagull nesting season) .
Either way, it was easily one of the most curious, impressive, and head-scratching mammalian sights I’ve ever seen.
I’ll happily admit the bear had much better mobility in its hips than I did after five days stuck in a kayak.
Safely down from the bluff, the bear again scampered through the bush behind our camp, and made its way back out of the cove.
After the excitement of the bear, the tarpologists got to work on the group tarp, and once all set up, we convened for a chat about tomorrow’s plans.
This was somewhat of an inflexion point in group dynamics. It was uncertain if tomorrow’s sea state was going to be any better than today. It certainly wasn’t going to be any worse, but potentially not any better either. Timbah, Ben, and I were keen to extend the time spent in the wilderness and therefore the sea state seemed like a good excuse to sit tomorrow out. Relax at camp, paddle back to the waterfalls perhaps, and spend another night at Mamushi-hama, finishing the trip the next day. Chris, however, having badly stubbed his toes at least twice while clambering over the Mamushi-hama Ankle Breakers, was not in any mood to entertain spending any more time at The Worst Campsite in the Universe than strictly necessary.
An additional factor were discussions we’d had prior to the trip regarding trip timing and appetite for a long versus short expedition. About a week before the trip, work commitments meant Chris and Mick had already floated the idea of splitting up the group if it looked like there’d be time pressure at the tail end of the trip. They suggested they could paddle out sooner than the rest of the crew. This was floated as a potential option for tomorrow.
My concern was the hard shoreline that we’d have for the remaining 13km paddle to Utoro. Previously, Haidee and I had paddled much of this shoreline in perfectly flat conditions, and it had occurred to me at the time how much confidence it would require to paddle it with a reflective swell, waves bouncing off a perfectly flat, vertical granite wall. That was, for sure, what we’d have tomorrow.
Decisions involved balancing safety, relative paddling comfort, desires to get the trip done sooner rather than later, desires to extend time spent in the wilderness as much as possible, and the pros and cons of splitting the group versus keeping everyone together for safety and mutual backup should anything go wrong.
Luckily, there was no need to make a decision tonight. The Garmin inReach weather forecast called for ever so slightly improving conditions tomorrow, so a deal was struck to reassess in the morning, after a well-deserved sleep-in.
———–
Early the next morning, however, I woke to rustling on the beach, and PFD buckles snapping shut. Some of the crew were already getting ready to go.
“We’ll see you in Utoro. We’re out of here.”
