"Stay home" request doesn't suggest no travel at all
The year 2020 will be remembered long in human history as the Coronavirus pandemic era. Since Chinese authorities first identified the disease in early December 2019 in Wuhan, it has spread rapidly to the entire world and caused lockdown in almost half of the world’s population by April 2020 including Japan, where then prime minister Shinzo Abe declared the state of emergency for 7 major prefectures on April 4th. People were requested to stay home and follow the ‘Social distancing’ rules.
Until April, I had been planning to travel Bulgaria in July for my summer hiking, but I realized that both Bulgaria and Japan had already put strict restrictions for incoming travelers with no hope of lifting them any time soon. I decided to make a new plan to head toward the countryside in Japan instead of going abroad.
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| at the foot of Tt. Choukai |
Based on this scenario, I decided to make a road trip in the Tohoku region, northern part of main island of Japanese Archipelago, at a time of the possible end of rainy season of July. Fortunately, my old friend joined me in this plan.
How to drive safe for 9 days road trip & hiking
I was more worried about driving than the Coronavirus threat, considering my age (over 70) and physical difficulty with my right hand. So I set up several rules to ensure safe driving & hiking through the entire route, even whatever the weather conditions might be or after the exhausted hiking. My golden driving rules were; (1) Driving mileage per day should be less than 350 km, (2) Starting at least by 9 am & reaching a next inn before 4 pm, (3) Taking a rest in each 1 - 2 hours' drive.
Based on these rules, my friend & I made out the following itinerary;
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| Driving route in Tohoku |
Day-1: 325 km drive from Kashiwa (柏市) north to Kamasaki Hot Spring (鎌先温泉) located in Shiraish-shi (白石市), with 1 night at Mogamiya inn (最上屋旅館)
Day-2: 286 km drive to Osako town (大迫町) in Hanamaki-shi (花巻市) thru Sendai and Kamaishi-shi, with 3 nights at the Lodge Hayachine (早池峰ロッヂ峰南荘)
Day-3: Excursion to Tono (遠野)
Day-4: Hiking to Mt. Hayachine (早池峰)
Day-5: 238 km drive north to Nishimeya village (西目屋村) in Aomori (青森) with 2 nights at the hotel of Bunano Sato Shirakamikan (ブナの里白神館)
Day-6: Explore Shirakami moutain range (白神山)
Day-7: Hiking to Mt. Iwaki (岩木山) and drive to Sarukura Hot Spring (猿倉温泉) , Honjyou-shi (本荘市), with 1 night at Hotel Foresta Chokai at the foot of Mt. Chokai (鳥海山)
Day-8: 271 km drive to Shirabu Hot Spring (白布温泉) in Yonezawa-shi (米沢市), with 1 night at Fudoukaku Nakaya inn (中屋別館不動閣)
Day-9: 328 km drive back to Kashiwa (柏市)
Day-1: Heading for Kamasaki Hot Spring (鎌先温泉)
We departed Kashiwa, my hometown, at 9:30 am on July 26, Sunday and immediately drove onto the Joban-do expressway (常磐道), heading for Kamasaki Hot Spring (鎌先温泉) located in Shirai-shi.
On the way, we took a lunch at the Abukuma Parking Area of Jobando expressway and were surprised to witness so few people dining quietly on tables with a protective vinyl sheet separating from the opposite seat for containing the spread of the virus.
Although sometimes we saw a occasional rain dripping softly, it was a fairly nice driving. we reached to Mogamiya inn of Kamasaki Hot Spring before 4 pm. Kamaski hot spring has a history of over 600 years, discovered by a village farmer with a sickle for cutting grass. Its name of Kamasaki comes from this incident. Near the inn, there were several sightseeing spots such as Shiroishi Castle, Fox village, Yajiro Kokeshi Village or even the "Okama" (御釜) , a crater lake of the volcano Zaou Mountains is closely located. As we had not much time before dinner, we drove to the Yajiro Kokeshi village to see its traditional wooden dolls. On the night after the dinner, I was healed in the wooden bathtub by the medical pure hot springs at the inn.
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| Mogamiya inn |
Next morning, we departed the inn at 9 am, heading for the mountain lodge in Ohasama (大迫) in Hanamaki-shi for a hike to Mt. Hayachine (早池峰). Away from Sendai, we drove onto the Sanriku Expressway along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean to Kesennuma (気仙沼), where we found an nice restraunt in the local fish market and ordered a big bowl of rice with assorted seafood on top.
From Kesennuma, we decided to make a detour to Tono (遠野) by taking the coastal route thru Kamaishi (釜石) and droped by Rikuzen-Takada on the way, despite the deteriorating weather. On March 11th, 2011, the town of Rikuzen-Takada was hit by the great earthquake & tsunami, killing nearly 2000 people and devastating the area completely. There stood one lonely pine tree near the memorial site, which was only one survivor and has been regarded as the symbol for people’s hope toward reconstruction. At the site, we paid respect to those victims and realized how slow the recovery project was going on.
By the time when we turned left at the intersection in Kamaishi into the national route 283 connecting directly Kamaishi with Hanmaki, it started to rain so fiercely that we sometimes could not see anything ahead through the front window of the car. I was anxious lest we should not be able to reach the lodge located deep in the mountain side within the day. But luckly as we managed to pass through Tono interchage, the torrential rain had gone away and we were able to reach the lodge before 6 pm. Based on this lodge for three days, we were going to climb Mt. Hayachine & visit the legendary village of Tono.
Day-3: Excursion to Ohasama (大迫) & Tono (遠野)
Next morning, it was raining gently as the rainy season still lingered around the region. Originally we had planed to clime up the mountain on this day, but decided to postpone the hike until tomorrow betting on the improvement of the weather. Instead, we had an equally irresistable plan to explore the legendary Ohasama & Tono, which are said to have preserved the atmosphere and local culture of ancient Japan. In 1910, Kunio Yanagita (柳田国男), a first anthropologist of Japan, published "The Legends of Tono (遠野物語)" which was a collection of folktales and legends in Tono, Iwate prefecture. More than 400 pieces of folktales contained in this book were originally collected by Kizen Sasaki (佐々木喜善) of Tono and recorded by Yanagita based on his narration of them.
Hayachine Kagura (早池峰神楽) & Kenji Miyazawa
First, we drove to the Hanamaki City Center For Archaeological operations (花巻市 総合文化財センター) in Ohasama situated on the way to Tono from the lodge, which introduced the nature, culture, history, and people of Hayachine, isolated mountainious region far from the ancient capitals of Edo and Kyoto. Among the exhibitions, I was especially impressed by the The Hayachine Kagura (早池峰神楽). Kagura (神楽) represents a performance of sacred Shinto music & dancing with its origin dated back at least to 1488, when the first record about Kagura appeared in its sacred document called as “神楽伝授書”. The Hayachine Kagura has been passed down from around 600 years ago for generations by Yamabushi (山伏), mountain priests who believed divine sprits dwelling in Mt.Hayachine. It is believed to have originated from these priests' dancing in offering up their prayers with a series of masked dances accompanied by drum, cymbals and flutes. In 2009, Hayachine Kagura was registered as the intangible cultural asset in UNESCO.
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| Hayachine Kagura |
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| Hayachine Kagura |
Next to this Center, we found an old wooden building, which exhibited the various items connected to some works by Kenji Miyazawa during his stay in Ohasama. Kenji Miyazawa (宮澤 賢治, 1896 – 1933) was a Japanese novelist and poet of children's literature from Hanamaki, also known as an agricultural science teacher, a vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, utopian social activist, and an Esperanto speaker. When I was an elementary school child, his works used to be one of my favorites.
The Kappa-buchi pool (カッパ淵)
After visiting the two meorial sites, we headed for Tono, where we first dropped by the Kappa-buchi pool. Kappa (河童) are legendary river imps found in old Japanese folklore across the country. They are said to favor cucumbers and like fishing with cucumbers or playing various mischievous pranks, sometimes even assaulting humans in water.
I imagine that in those old days,mothers used to scare thier chilren with frightening Kappa stories to prevent them from approaching to and playing in dangerous rivers & ponds. But nowadays, they are depicted rather as humourous creatures in cartoons and modern Japanese children love them.
The Kappa-buchi pool (カッパ淵) was a small stream behind Jokenji temple. The legend tells us that once upon a time in this brook, there used to be mischievous Kappas (河童), who liked to play the fool with villagers of Tono (遠野). But now the place was very quiet with no other visitors around us under gentle rain.
Tono Furusato Village (遠野ふるさと村)
So how the old mountain village of Tono looked like, how they lived and what kinds of lanscapes they saw? With these questions in mind, we went to Tono Furusato Village (遠野ふるさと村) , which has preserved the various styles of old villagers' houses characerized by a thatched roof and an L-shaped "magariya (曲がり家)" architecture for the integration of a main house & a staple. Tono has been well known for breeding good horses. This L-shaped style of houses represents thier relationship with horses, who were part of a family in those days. It took us less than 20 minutes by car to be here from Kappa-buchi pool. There were no special events due to the pandemic restrictions and while we saw increasingly fiercely falling rain, we had sensed some atomosphere of old Tono.
Day-4: Mt.Hayachine hike
It was still raining gently in the early morning, but this was the last chance for us to climb up to the peak of Mt. Hayachine. From the lodge, there's no bus running to Odagoshi tozan-guchi (小田越登山口), the entry point for a hike to the peak, because of the traffic restrictions due to Covid-19. So I asked the lodge hostess to take us there from Kawaranobou (河原の坊) by her car, which made it possible for us to start hiking one hour earlier than planned.
There was a mountain bear warning to hikers about the route up the mountain. So I carried a noisy bell on my bag to let bears recognize us by its sound before both parties could have a near miss, while my friend was armed against them with a short but keen-edged alpenstock to battle with them if they would attack us. We didn't take care about the Social Distancing with other human beings, but we did with mountain bears.
Ae we climbed up, the trekking path had become increasingly steep and rocky, leading to the area covered with giant rocks of slippery serpentinite. We were forced to climp up these rocks using the steel chain ladders.
After passing through the giants rocks, we reached to the crossroads between the peak of Mt. Hayachine and Mt. Kengamine (剣が峰).
From this point to the peak, the path was a gradual ascent and we were happy to see the blue sky dispelling dark clouds little by little. But as soon as we got to the peak, the skies abruptly darkened with almost nothing visible in the distance and it began to rain again. How frivolous the mountain climate was!. We quicly ate rice balls in our lunch boxes which the lodge hostess had prepared for us.
Alpine flowers
Mt. Hayachine is one of "100 Great Mountains in Japan" written by Kyuya Fukada, an essayist & mountaineer born in 1903. This book has been a bible guide book for Japanese mountain hiking lovers including myself since a university student. The mountain is the higest in the Kitagami Range, Iwate prefecture with a height of 1,917 m and boasts of many alpine flowers including some endemic species like Leontopodium hayachinense (ハヤチネウスユキソウ) that looks like edelweiss found in the European Alps. Although it had been raining during most of the day, those flowers gave us comfort of mother nature, making our footstep to stop often on the way.
At the lodge on the night
We started to descend from the peak at 13 pm, taking the same route back to Odagoshi tozan-guchi (小田越登山口) at 15:20 pm. From here to Kawara-no-bo (河原の坊) where we parked the car, we walked down on the bus road. Arriving finally at the lodge around 17pm , we were totally drenched to the skin and immediately dried our clothes & shoes over stoves in which the lodge hostess quickly made a fire. And we wrapped up the active day with a toast of Edel Wein produced locally.
The Hayachine shrine (早池峰神社)
Next day before we departed from the lodge for Aomori (青森) prefecture, we visited the Hayachine shrine residing next to the lodge to pay respect for the holy sprit of the ancient Deities in the region. The shrine is said to have been first inaugurated in 807 by the descendant of Fujiwara no Kamatari(藤原鎌足), a statesman during the Asuka period (592 - 710 AD). According to the legend, in 807 the two village hunters chasing after a misterious deer witnessed a noble incarnation of Buddha (権現) encompassed with golden rays at the summit of Mt.Hayachine and after their descent they built a shrine and worshipped it as the Goddess of Mt. Hayachine, which led to the current Hayachine Shrine. In a usual year, an annual festival of the shrine is scheduled to be held on August 1st, two days later, where Hayachine Kagura (早池峰神楽), Shinto ritual ceremonial dance & music of Hayachine, is performed as the votive offering to sacred spirits of the shrine. But this year such ceremonies were all canceled due to the pandemic.
(to be continued in the part-2)
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