% Through Japan’s Yatsugatake Traverse Trek – Part 2

Read about the second half of the Yatsugatake Grand Traverse, where high hopes are crushed by low elevation, childhood in cabins, Lamborfeeties, and a sprint to the finish line. Plus, some unexpected German craftsmanship hidden in a Japanese village (hint: Wurst!).

I’m hungry – hello hungry, I’m dad

I dig through my bag of food: mostly ziplocks and empty wrappers. A few sachets of instant coffee, a sachet of creatine, honey-flavored cough drops. One last package of ramen, which I’m saving for dinner.

The food situation is frustrating but not surprising. Even after thousands of miles of backpacking (probably close to 10,000 at this point), I still struggle to improve my food planning.

There’s a fine line between rolling into town on half a Pop-Tart with a bag of sweet chili tuna (the best flavor, fight me!) or blowing your mind on cheeseburgers.

The last two cabins I passed were still boarded up. Snacks are not sold. No overpriced chocolate bars, no stale chips, no granola bars that make you lose your teeth. It’s May, golden week, a fairly important Japanese holiday. But the season at Yatsugatake Traverse hasn’t started yet.

Leaving the high mountains behind, the trail passes through volcanic rocks, almost resembling Oregon’s PCT stretch, around the Dee Wright Observatory. Nostalgia has a bittersweet taste in the mouth: it was mid-September when we arrived in Hermanas in 2023 and the days were getting noticeably shorter. The race against winter had begun, but the Canadian border was still far away.

Life is soup, I am a fork.

Prayer flags and T-shirts sway in the wind outside the Futagoike Hütte. (The official name is Hütte, which is German for hut.)

“If they sell souvenirs, they sell food,” my stomach growls in agreement.

On a small cardboard sign by the door, grainy images show the day’s menu. The caretaker appears, a young woman, with surprise written on her face. While the Yatsugatake Mountains had been busy with day and night hikers from Mount Aka, the last section was deserted, as was the cabin. The sudden silence is almost eerie.

¥700 ($5) for a meat and vegetable soup. Sold! I take off my wet socks and stretch my worn toes on the warm gravel. Down here by the lakes the sun really feels like a gentle relief from the cold. On the ridges and peaks, you are losing the battle against the strong wind. Being here below the tree line is comforting and being cared for by a friendly caretaker is also comforting. This hike is no walk in the park, that’s for sure.

Lost tourists

The woman reappears with a small tray, balancing a generous portion of soup and a pair of wooden chopsticks.

She’s chatty and we quickly go through the standard catalog of small talk: where are you from, how long are you in Japan, where are you hiking, are you camping, etc.

But since Yatsugatake’s journey began, there is a new question that has been asked several times in recent days:

“How did you find this place?” (i.e. Yatsugatake Mountains)

It seems that this mountain range, perhaps overshadowed by Mount Fuji and the Japanese Alps, does not receive many foreign visitors. Leaving locals curious as to how two Gaijins* in their shorts ended up here.

Childhood in Yatsugatake’s journey

The woman has made an effort to learn English; He chooses his words carefully and his pronunciation seems academic and precise. I ask him about the cabin and where he grew up. With each response, his smile grows wider. And that’s when I start to recognize a pattern in my travels through Japan:

Women sharing stories. Women connecting across language barriers. Women who leave behind decades of competition against each other and instead choose to be inspired by each other. Or maybe this women’s competition was a Western thing from the beginning, maybe it’s age that makes the difference, I’m not sure. But it is there, tangible, real, warm and gentle.

When I return the tray, he hands me a sticker. A hand painted illustration featuring a small caravan in a tent and a salamander. She gives me the small square, holds it with both hands and I take it with both hands. Reverence.

“It was nice meeting you,” I say, putting my gratitude into every syllable, hoping she can sense how much I mean it.

She smiles.

«You too.»

For a moment, we looked into each other’s eyes, knowing that we will probably never see each other again. She will never know that somewhere on the Internet there is a silly story written about her.

From Denver with love to Yatsugatake Traverse

From here, the Yatsugatake Traverse climbs through a dense bamboo forest to Mount Futago. Day 3 was supposed to end at the Futago hut, but after getting up so early we still had the entire afternoon ahead of us.

Fueled by soup and good vibes, I head to Tateshina-Sansou’s cabin.

“Are you coming back?” a woman in a Patagonian vest approaches me as I pass by the shelter at the beginning of the trail to the summit.

«Ehhh, right?» I am confused by the question.

«You won’t come back here? Where are you going?»

I mention the name of the trailhead on the other side. The woman looks at her watch.

«That’s far. Where are you coming from today?»

«To the right»

«Kuroyuri? That’s a long way.»

«Yeah»

«What time did you start? I’m trying to find out if you can make it. It’s snowing and will be dark in a few hours.»

I look at my own watch; It’s 2 in the afternoon.

“6 am”

She looks at her watch again.

«You’re ready to go,» he releases me and I return to the trail.

“Where did you learn English?” I turn around. He speaks like someone who has been abroad for a while.

“Denver”

«Oh, Colorado. No wonder you’re working here.»

“Always the mountains,” he nods and smiles.

cave woman

It’s a quick climb up Mount Tateshina, one of the top 100 mountains in Japan. The peak is bubbled by thick white clouds, and a biting wind tugs at my jacket. I don’t stay long before starting the descent. There’s nothing to see anyway.

With every meter of altitude I descend, tension is released from my body. My shoulders relax, my grip loosens. It’s as if the valley is calling my soul back, to wrap it tightly in a blanket and bind up my scraped knees.

“You’re a caveman,” Ross told me the other day, reading my human design chart. “I don’t know anything about that,” I replied. «Caves make me feel claustrophobic.»

That night, I placed my tarp low, under a Japanese latch, in a small clump of trees surrounded by moss-covered rocks. I crawled inside to get a good night’s sleep for the first time on this hike, thinking, «Maybe I’m a cavewoman after all.»

Day 4: the lazy exit

Although the sun rises at 4am, it’s almost 7am when I wake up, which is late by hiking standards (if they exist).

There are a few more kilometers to the Puru-daira bus stop, the official end of the Yatsugatake Traverse (according to david’s route). The alternative is to walk down the road from the trailhead and wait for any problems.

Not a single car has passed between the time I woke up, made coffee, brushed my teeth, and packed up. Not one. The chances of getting to the food and coffee faster than my two feet (Lamborfeeties, get it?) are slim.

“There’s only one way to know,” I sigh and leave the track behind in favor of the asphalt. And in favor of finding food faster.

A taste of Bavaria in Japan

Generally, 3 types of drivers picked me up while hitchhiking in the US (besides the trail angels, God bless them): The first are men my dad’s age who are into outdoor activities: hiking, hunting, fishing, you name it. Followed by blue-collar workers who know what it’s like to be in a bind. Followed by hippies, vans, free spirits, hitchhikers.

He’ll probably take me when I hitchhike in Japan – you never know!

Today he was an old man wearing a postal service uniform. The car that had stopped earlier (but was not going in my direction) was a businessman in a suit and a shiny truck.

If you ever walk the Yasugatake Traverse, be sure to stop by the peter ham shop in Tateshina. Hirato Sakamoto went to Germany in 1974 to learn how to make sausages and sells all kinds of typical Bavarian delicacies (where I grew up) in his shop. For vegetarians: there is homemade sauerkraut you won’t want to miss.

*Gaijins = foreigners