Mt. Kita (北岳)

All summer I’d been planning to climb Mt. Fuji with my good friend, and NMEC student, Yasuhito. Unfortunately, on the few weekends when we were both free there were either thunderstorms on the mountain or typhoons blasting their way through Shizuoka. By the time some good climbing weather came along on a weekend when I had no other commitments it was a little late in the season to be tackling Mt. Fuji.

We thought long and hard about an alternative hike and eventually decided to do Mt. Kita, ‘the leader of the Southern Alps’, in Yamanashi Prefecture. With it’s peak standing at 3,193m, it’s the second highest mountain in Japan. It’s also one of Japan’s ’100 Famous Mountains’. Unlike Mt. Fuji, most of the trail winds it’s way through dense forest, which makes the hiking itself considerably more interesting than ‘God’s Mountain’..

We left home at 4.30 on a Saturday morning and drove to Yamanashi, finally setting off on the trail around 9.30. We reached the first camp, about half way up the mountain by midday, and stopped there for lunch – a couple of rice balls! From that point onwards the trail becomes very steep and, by mid afternoon, noticeably colder. We reached the top camp, at 3000m, by 3.30pm. We’d been expecting the climb to take 6 or 7 hours, so we were quite pleased at having made it in 5.5 hours, including breaks.

We were pretty tired by the time we arrived. Our packs had been pretty heavy as we’d had to carry warm clothes, food and a lot of water. After we checked in at the camp, we fired up a small gas stove, boiled some water, and treated ourselves to some instant ramen noodles – and more rice balls! By 5.00P.M. it was already getting quite cold, so we headed into one of the camp buildings and sat chatting around a paraffin stove to keep warm. There were people there of all ages, from all over Japan and the atmosphere was pretty lively, despite the fact that most people looked quite exhausted!

‘Lights-out’ was at 8.00P.M. We then made our way to the other building where we would be sleeping. No beds, of course! Just a tatami floor, a sleeping bag, and a couple of blankets! The temperature went down to about -4°C during the night and, as we were all packed together like sardines, we didn’t get a lot of sleep!

We got up early on Sunday and made the final ascent to the summit in time to see the sunrise, which is always worthwhile. After that, we made our way back down to the camp for breakfast, before starting our way down the mountain again. I actually found the descent quite easy, whereas Yasu thought going up was much easier than going down. Every hiker is different, I guess.

All in all, I would highly recommend climbing Mt. Kita, if you get the chance. Almost all the way up to the top camp, you are traipsing through beautiful, unspoiled forest, criss-crossing streams and passing by waterfalls aplenty. The views are consistently spectacular, even if the weather’s not perfect because, for much of the climb, you’ll be above the clouds in any case!

Check out the photos below!