Lady of the Gaseous Screens

July 30, 2005 | Laughing Knees | 15 Comments 

Larch woods on the start of the Mt. Senjo walk.

The first look at the treeline

A look back at Mt. Senjo’s twin peak, Mt. Kaikoma

As I had hoped it has be­come a sum­mer of moun­tain walk­ing, prob­a­bly one of the ac­tiv­i­ties I love best. I’m find­ing that when I re­turn to town the cloy­ing heat, the un­friendly crowds, the mind­less rush­ing around, and the gen­eral inat­ten­tive­ness to the sur­round­ing world has got­ten me spend­ing every spare mo­ment seek­ing a way out, to­wards a way of life more con­ducive to my tem­pera­ment. Even time at the com­puter is falling away; I’m find­ing that I can­not stay seated in front of the com­puter for more than a half hour or so be­fore rest­less­ness hits me and I have to get up and pace the apart­ment or go for a walk.

The pho­tographs here I brought back from my walk over Mt. Senjo, west of Tokyo in the South Japan Alps. It was my third at­tempt. Twice be­fore tor­ren­tial rains washed the trail out and I had to turn back. This time the rains hov­ered over­head for two days and con­stantly threat­ened to come pour­ing down, but some­how I man­aged to slip by un­no­ticed by the Lady of the Gaseous Screens, as Mt. Senjo seemed to me.

Clouds fol­lowed the en­tire walk.

Mt. Kaikoma never re­ally re­vealed itself.

String of flow­ers in a nook away from the wind.

The walk was eas­ier this time than the walk up Mt. Shi­rane a month ago. The ex­er­cise has been pay­ing off, and then Mt. Senjo lent it­self to a com­fort­able pace, with the suc­ces­sion of views and ex­er­tion just stretched out enough that the walk could be taken in com­fort­able in­cre­ments. The main con­cern was time, be­cause the new bus sys­tem didn’t al­low for much lee­way in terms of the first and last buses down the moun­tain. So, though I thor­oughly en­joyed the walk, I had to rush a lit­tle, too.

Ridge­line walk­ing is what makes moun­tain walk­ing so heavenly!

First view of the shoul­der of Mt. Senjo’s summit.

Eat­ing a rice ball while star­ing into the abyss

Mt. Senjo acted like a co­quet­tish lady, peek­ing out from be­hind the screen then danc­ing away to an­other be­fore I could get a glimpse of her face. The whole day was a se­ries of just miss­ing a grand view; I would be huff­ing and puff­ing up an in­cline, look up, and just catch a new screen of clouds slid­ing over a sunny panorama. The clouds rolled and slid over the peaks like great white-​​gloved hands, the fin­gers whistling in the wind.

A mo­ment of clar­ity along the ridgeline

Be­cause of all the other pho­tog­ra­phers I couldn’t get into a good po­si­tion to take a good pho­to­graph of these two ptarmi­gans. The sat un­afraid, watch­ing us as if we ad landed on the wrong planet.

Senjo Moun­tain Hut, a lonely build­ing sit­ting in a hang­ing val­ley over­looked by the peaks of Mt. Senjo.

The most dif­fi­cult part of the walk took me through a ra­zor­back ridge where some rock scram­bling left me hang­ing over thin air at times. My heart pounded as I twisted my­self over ledges and heard the wind boom from be­hind me, nudg­ing me to­ward the edges. None of it was ter­ri­bly dif­fi­cult, though, and with just enough scary foot­ing to add spice to the gray­ness of the sky, the walk lifted me up over the whole world. I stood atop the nar­row peak, stared out into the wall of cloud, and then sat down to warm my­self with some curry and rice.

The round of peaks which I had climbed earlier

Walk­ers de­scend­ing from the peak to the hut.

View of the hut and the trail over the summit

Round­ing the walk off I fol­lowed a round­about path that led around the peak op­po­site Senjo’s sum­mit ridge, tak­ing me down through an alpine gar­den of pink flow­er­ing rhodo­den­drons, black lilies, white birch, and rowan. The trail low­ered it­self gen­tly here, draw­ing away from the rocky ridges and col­or­ing every­thing with rain-​​washed emer­ald green veg­e­ta­tion. wa­ter­falls spilled down along the steep slopes and seemed to dance like chil­dren over the dark rocks. I was filled with oxy­gen and joy, and sang as I walked. Fol­low­ing the con­tour of the moun­tain, it took me back to the trail upon which I had first stepped onto the shoul­der of Mt. Senjo and then took me down into the larch forests be­low again. The clouds still fol­lowed me, but held back their rain.

I packed up my tent and just made it to the last bus of the day.

Log moun­tain hut on the slope op­po­site Senjo ridge. I wnated to stop and have cof­fee here, but I had to make it down the moun­tain to catch the last bus.

Wa­ter­falls spilled down in every ravine in the last part of the walk.

The clouds never let up all day, but they car­ried their own mys­te­ri­ous and moody beauty.