Here’s the state of my living room floor at the moment – I’m getting my hiking gear out for my first overnight Japanese hiking outing.
The plan is to take off tomorrow night after work and stay in Kofu, then catch a bus up to the mountain first thing on Saturday morning. And I mean first thing – the bus leaves Kofu Station at 4am. The next one is not until 9am, so we’re going to have to be up well before the sparrows. It will arrive at the start of our track at a bit after 5am, but I’m not so sure we’ll get early morning solitude around these parts. This is an excursion with Hayashi-san, a new friend who I met when walking up Tou-no-take last month. He’s organised the business hotel in Kofu tomorrow, as well as booked the mountain hut that we’ll be staying in. The concept of booking a space in a mountain hut is kind of new to me! Here’s a web page of the hut we’ll be staying in on Saturday night: http://www.yin.or.jp/user/houousan/yakushi.htm. It’s called Yakushi-dake Goya, and it’s just below the mountain we’re climbing, Yakushi-dake (薬師岳), which is in the Southern Alps. The hut is at 2720 metres above sea level, and it’s around 3,600 yen per a night without food or bedding, or approx 6,000 yen with two meals and bedding provided. Bit different to the hut up the Staircase on Mt Bogong!
