Second Day of my Summer Holiday

The next morning, I got up at 5:30 to have a bath. They swapped “Men” & “Women” signs. It was the cypress bath yesterday and the rock bath today. Anyway, I experienced the ultimate bliss of having a bath while looking at trees and the natural beauty of the area.

After a quick breakfast, we left the hotel and rushed to the entrance of the mountain by car. It was only a 20 minute drive there but because of the season, the car park was nearly full. I managed to find one and moved to the trolley bus stop. Although they had 5 buses running every 30 minutes at the same time, the 7:30 ones were all full. The bus went through the tunnels which were made more than 40 years ago to carry material to build a dam deep in the mountain. The construction work was difficult and took the lives of 171 workers.

After a 15 minutes ride, we got to the first destination, Kurobe Dam. Thanks to the beautiful weather, the sky was totally clear and the sun was reflected on the rocky surface of the mountain. The breathtaking scenery of the dam is definitely one of the best in the country and is always mentioned in tourist books about Japan’s natural beauty. Surrounded by beautiful mountains, I could not resist taking a lot of photos with my camera.

Enjoying the scenery there, we walked along the dam to the next stop from where we got into a cable car. To protect nature and minimise the damage from heavy snow, the cable car route is underground and we went up 400m without stopping. The ride was only for 5 minutes but because of the number of people there, we had to wait for 1 hour.

Getting off the cable car, we took the ropeway. There are no support poles in this 1.7Km line and it is the longest ropeway in the country among this type of construction. Looking 500m below ourselves, it was a 7 minute ride. The service started in 1970 and the same old ropeway is used. Worried about the age of the ropeway, I could not feel safe and wished to get to the other side as quickly as possible.

Getting there in one piece, we rode another trolley bus which runs at 2450m, the highest railway station in Japan. This was the last ride to get to the top. A 10 minute ride took us to the first destination, “Murodo”. Getting outside, I felt the temperature definitely lower. This was the start of our hiking. We had a light lunch and when we were just about to take off, mist started to appear. At first I was thinking about doing the 4 hour walk to the very top of the mountain (3001m), but knowing that the weather changes quickly in the mountains, we decided to go on a safe 3 hour hike around Murodo instead. Considering that we did not bring any proper mountain climbing gear, this seemed the best idea. Most routes are tar-sealed, so it is a suitable trek for beginners like ourselves. When we started, I thought it would not be too hard if it was just 3 hours, but then realised it was not that easy. At the height of 3000m, the air was thin and walking over the bumpy surface around an old crater, I ran out of breath soon. But it was truly a blissful time for us walking in picturesque scenery without worrying about my daily business. We saw some unusual birds called Rock Ptarmigan, one of Japan’s protected species. Being only 330 of them spotted in the whole Tateyama, we were lucky to see 3 of them.

We wanted to do more things after the trekking, but we were too tired to do anything else. Not being able to feel our own legs properly, we decided to head to the hotel for a rest.


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