Hi there! This is Part 2 of my trip to the beautiful Karasawa Cirque. Miss the first part? Check it out here!
Jessica and I ‘awoke’ to the sound of rain hitting our tent at around 6am. We finally left the tent around 8, our need to go to the bathroom greater than our annoyance at the cold, wet morning. Once we got out, though, we didn’t really want to go back in. Instead, we talked about the horror that was last night.
Decisions
“I’ll be honest, I’d be perfectly fine with packing up the tent and heading back down to Yokoo today,” I said, slurping up noodles from my morning ramen. “I didn’t sleep the day before yesterday, I didn’t sleep last night, and if it’s supposed to be colder tonight, I probably won’t sleep again.” Jessica looked at me and I could tell she didn’t want to leave yet. Sighing, I said, “I can probably gaman (stick it out) for one more night, but it’s going to be really hard if I can’t get warm.”
In the end, we decided to wait and see what the weather did and make a final decision around 1pm, which would still give us enough time to pack up and head to Yokoo if we wanted. In the meantime we set off for the other hut in the Karasawa Cirque, the aptly named… Karasawa Hut.
Karasawa Hut
I love the look of this building. It’s situated just right on the hill so it gets lot of sunlight (when it’s actually sunny), and it’s awfully photogenic.
At the top of the trail, it splits into two; the left goes to the hut (and Oku Hotaka-Dake) and the right goes to Kita Hotaka-dake.
Just like at the Hyutte, this hut has a bunch of picnic tables where people were eating and cooking food. One difference was a small vending machine with cans of Coke decorated with kamoshika! I couldn’t help it; I had to buy one as a memory of the trip. So you can imagine my disappointment when the can came out and there were no kamoshika on it. Lies!
By the time we made it back down to the tent, the weather had cleared up a bit. We packed some stuff, ate lunch at the Hyutte, decided to spend another night in the cirque, then set off for the Panorama Route.
The Panorama Route — Great views of the Karasawa Cirque
We honestly didn’t know much about this route. Maps that I’d seen were kinda scarce on information about it, since most people come here for the big mountains. The trail started in the campsite. We followed the path, marked by arrows and circles painted on the rocks, and began our journey.
It. was. beautiful. We leapfrogged with another photographer for a while, but eventually it was just us amongst the rocks. The higher we climbed, the easier it was to see the path leading up to Oku Hotaka-Dake, the third highest mountain in Japan. The peak itself, and the mountain hut near it, were covered in fast-moving clouds.
We climbed on the uneven, sometimes unstable path for probably two hours until we reached a split — left went to Oku Hotaka-Dake and the other mountains that made up the ridge, right went back to the Karasawa Hut. As much as we wanted to keep climbing, we knew it wasn’t a good idea so we descended back to the hut and our tent.
A cup of hot chocolate
Gee, I wonder what happens in this section haha. Jess and I made it to the tent, chilled for a bit, then I fiddled with my portable stove. I actually tried to mess with it earlier in the day, but it wouldn’t ignite. The goal: boil water for the packets of instant cocoa I’d packed. Aaaaand lift off! It ignited super quick, and while the wind made it seem like the water wasn’t getting hot at all, by the time I took it off it was plenty hot.
We sat outside the tent, bundled up and hands wrapped around our cups, and enjoyed the fading sun.
A Starry Night in the Karasawa Cirque
After another meal at the hyutte…
…we carefully picked our way back to the tent.
“Ya know, we probably shoulda picked a spot closer to the path…”
“Yeahhhh, tips for next time!”
I had decided at dinner not to take any night pictures. My camera battery was low and, like an idiot, I left my spare at home. I just hoped that the sunrise would be worth it! We climbed inside the tent, put on all our layers, wrapped ourselves in our sleeping bags, and played cards.
A trip to the bathroom was all it took to change my mind about the pictures. It was so insanely clear; as soon as we stepped outside of the tent, we both looked up and gasped. There, stretched out above us, were the most stars I’d ever seen in my life. Bright ones, dim ones, constellations and clusters; I could’ve stayed there all night just looking. I decided I couldn’t let that pass.
Luckily, there was a giant rock close to our campsite that I figured would make for a good vantage point. I clambered up, fingers frozen and clumsy, clutching my camera and gear. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t drop anything! Once up there, I set up my tiny tripod, spread myself in a very awkward position on the rock so I could look through the viewfinder, and started taking pictures. Jessica laid down on the rock next to me, her gaze locked on the sky above.
I took. so many pictures. Eventually we heard scrambling sounds and saw a group of people coming up with their normal-person tripods. We stayed a bit longer to enjoy the moon rising over the mountains behind us; I took a couple more pictures with the mountains in the moonlight then we returned to the tent. No matter how the pictures turned out, I achieved my goal for this trip — night pictures!
That night…
Ohhhhh my gosh you guys, I cannot even BEGIN to describe to you how cold it was. Have you ever watched a movie about Everest, where people are huddled in their tents at night in 15 layers and they’ve got ice on their faces and they’re shivering? That’s how I felt. I was wearing a heat-tech shirt, another shirt, a down jacket, and my rain coat on top, two pairs of socks, the gloves I use when I snowboard, a neck warmer over my ears, two pairs of pants, and the hood of my sleeping bag pulled up and tight around my face and STILL spent the whole night shivering. I also slept with my phone and an external battery inside my sleeping bag; the cold kept sucking the battery dry.
We ended up taking a midnight bathroom run, and once we got back, we busted out our supply of kairo (hand warmers) and stuck them all over our bodies. To no avail. The kairo actually kept me from sleeping ’cause I had to keep moving them around to different areas.
By the end of the night, Jessica and I were cuddling to try and stay warm and I couldn’t wait to be off this mountain.
Click here for part 3, where Jess and I make the slow and dangerous journey from the Karasawa Cirque back to Kamikochi! Thanks for reading!
I love the photos (yay for nighttime pics) and your sticktoitiveness (have fun with that one, non-native English speakers). So sorry you got robbed by the Pani Poni Dash! vending machine. “It’s warmed by my body heat!”