Shichimenzan (Mt. Shichimen)

On my trip to Akasawa I met a couple of people who talked about the tallest mountain in Hayakawa, Shichimenzan (Mt. Shichimen) at 1982 meters. This journal is kind of boring from this point on. Fair warning. One of them I never got his name. The other, Mrs. Yoda, invited me to climb the mountain with her husband and daughter (who, despite being my age, is married and has 2 young children) to watch the festival. I accepted and the date was set. The morning of the hike, Mrs. Yoda stopped by my house and gave me a backpack absolutely *packed* with snacks. I mean, ridiculously packed. Like, 20 pounds worth of snacks. It also contained probably the best grapes I've ever had, and I've had some awesome grapes in Hayakawa. Anyway, I met Mr. Yoda at 1pm at the base of the mountain.

When I got there, he kind of looked at me and then asked what I was going to do. "Ummmm... climb the mountain, then climb back down?" He shook his head. "Nononononono, that's impossible." "Umm, impossible meaning what?" I asked. "Everyone is staying overnight at the temple!" he explains. That would have been one of the things it would've been nice to know before we were standing at the bottom of the mountain. This always happens in Japan, so I guess the motto is "be prepared." Still, who packs for an overnight trip when you thought it was a day trip? You don't want to carry all that extra stuff.

In any case, we set off up the mountain. The views for the first 3/4s were marred by the ubiquitous power lines, but it was still a very nice hike. The entire thing took me 2.5 hours (which i guess was on the faster side), and I ended up ditching Mr. Yoda and his daughter. They came in 20 minutes after I did, or so.

There are 44 stops on the way up the mountain, marked usually by a covered bench, a tiny stone shrine, and a little basket for dropping coins. There were also 3 major rest stations with restaurant like functions (maybe just drinks?). In any case, at one of them I received a sports drink, and the rest had free, crisp, clean mountain water. Quite yummy. The buddhist travelers, often all in white, would stop, bow, and drop some coins in each basket on the way up. There were many groups of people all in the white pilgram clothes, but lots of regular people too. I was totally soaked by the time I got to the top, and, do to thewind, I was getting really chilled. I ended up just wearing my fleece at the top with no shirts underneath because I was shivering. Poor planing not to bring another shirt, but I really didn't expect to spend *that* much time at the top. Anyway, we got to the top around 4 and there were some gorgeous views of Mt. Fuji (we were above the clouds) along with the very nice Nichiren buddhist temple. Most people definitely appeared to be spending the night when I got there, as they were all checking in.

I was ushered into the room with the Hayakawa dance group. They were all chilling out and chatting and had lots of snacks (and beer). Mr. Yoda's daughter was part of the group. I hung out there until it was time for the festival to start at about 6:30. The dance was pretty fun to watch,although my pictures came out terrible. I was amazed that they could dance for as long as they did because my legs hurt like hell after climbing the mountain, and I'm sure theirs did, too.

After their dance, a bunch of guys came out playing some random-ish music and presented themself to some head monk (who, by the way, the other monks had *carried* up the mountain). The monks were pretty amusing, and seemed to have a good sense of humor and laughed a lot. Too bad my pictures stopped coming out at this point. After the festival was dinner, and not festival food like I was expecting. This was a regular japanese meal (rice, miso soup, tempura, many veggies, etc... maybe 12 different types of food, usually 3-4 bites of each). Pretty tasty, despite being cold since it had been brought before the festival started.

Finally dinner was finished, and we went out for the most breathtaking views mt. fuji at night. totally amazing. the festival was held on the night of the largest full moon of the year, and it was gorgeous. again, no pictures because it was dark and they came out pitch black.

After we finished admiring the view, and despite the fact that I was told that no one descended at night, 8 of us (6 members of the dance team and one son of one of the members) descended. The descent took about 2 hours by flash light, with 10 minutes or so at each of the major rest stops. The dance people spent most of it singing random japanese songs, some of which I recognized and most of which I didn't. I got home at, maybe, midnight or so. By the end my legs were very, very wobbly, but the next day I wasn't as sore as I imagined I would be.