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"No rest for the wicked."




Misi Gunung

List of mountains (DONE)
Trans Full C-Curve
#40mountainsin2018
#30mountainsin2017
#20mountainsin2016
#10mountainsinJapan
#10mountainsin2014









Links

Lomohomes | Tumblr

Akmal | Ajiq

Julian.B | Kimmo.S








Friday, May 27, 2016, 4:08 PM
1. Mount Io (硫黄岳), Southern Yatsugatake, Nagano.




       Mount Io / 硫黄岳 (2,760m/9,060ft) was the first mountain in the list. Mount Io is a stratovolcano mountain. It is one of the many peaks of Southern Yatsugatake mountain range located at the border of Chino and Minamimaki Prefecture, Japan. Southern Yatsugatake has 8 peaks (Mount Aka being the highest) while Northern Yatsugatake has 10 peaks (Mount Tengu being the highest).

      I hiked with two of my new friends whom I knew from social media (the one I mentioned earlier in previous post, remember?), Anas (but I like to call him Nanas more, so I'll use Nanas in this post) and Sota-san. Well, being the random me, I was the one who asked Sota-san to hike together. And later when Nanas knew about it, he wanted to join us as well. Initially, Sota-san planned to hike three mountains, Mount Aka (the highest peak of Southern Yatsugatake mountain range), Mount Yoko and Mount Io. But due to bad weather, we only managed to hike Mount Io (also due to my inability to endure cold weather).


THE TRUTH : I lost the data once I updated iOS (oh screw you Apple!). So, this is basically what I remember. (sobs)


         Sota-san and Nanas picked me up at 2AM at the guesthouse I was staying in Nakano. It took about 3 hours (more or less) to reach Yatsugatake-Chūshin Kōgen Quasi-National Park by car. We stopped at highway pit stop in the middle of the journey for Subh prayer. It was my first time seeing Japanese highway pit stop, and trust me, I was jakun. Haha.

Public transport instruction :

From Shinjuku Station, take the rapid train to Chino Station.
From there, take a bus to Minotoguchi Trailhead (美濃戸口).
Shinjuku→Chino Station    → Minotoguchi Trailhead
2 hours 25 mins. (¥6,070)   → 45 mins. (¥900)

The food order machine. You pay first, get the receipt and
give it to the food stall worker.
Their convenience store is to die for, everything's here.
They have variety of food too. But Muslim
cannot eat everything. Haha.
Subh prayer. I bring my raincoat everywhere I go.
It has multiple purposes, can be used as telekung
as well as sejadah.
Japanese highway pit stop


         Though I hike often and have like 3 years of hiking experience, I still could not get rid of the nervous feeling. It always gets me whenever I hike mountains I have never been to. I didn't know what to expect, what to feel, what to think. The unfamiliarity made you losing your mind. I told myself to calm down, just follow the flow, keep walking and rest if you need to. And I also told them about my hiking pace so they can estimate theirs. Hmmm, just like I expected, first mountain is always the hardest (cough*worst*cough).

         We started hiking around 5.30AM from Minodo trail head. I do not have much information on the trail though, because I lost the log in my phone and I did not buy or take any maps of Yatsugatake mountain as I could not find any (actually more like I forgot to go to the office). Haha. Sorry. But here is a few information on the trails we used, roughly.


Minodo-guchi / 美濃戸口 (trail head)  - Minodo Sanso - Kitazawa - Akadake Kosen (hot spring mountain hut) - Iodake (Mount Io) - Gyoujyagoya  - Minamizawa - Minodo

Minodo trail head. Here's the parking space.
I already felt the coldness here. Belum start
hiking pun lagi. Haha.





Minodo sanso. Sanso (sansou) means mountain villa/hut.
Here's the closer look. I found that Japanese mountain huts
are mostly pretty, neat and clean.
They even got the map signage. Every is complete!
Picture credit : Nanas
Sota-san gave briefing to us before hiking.
Picture credit : Nanas




        After few hours trekking, I started to feel the coldness as the elevation increased. Cold weather is my ultimate weakness. I can endure steep trail, hiking for hours (I once hiked for 16 hours straight with heavy load before *cough*V1*cough) or walking under scorching sun. But not cold weather. I could not think straight when I hiked Kinabalu last year as it was too cold to handle (because it was raining the day before and the temperature dropped). So when Sota-san said it was not that cold, I thought a thin Uniqlo windbreaker would do me justice. Sadly, no (cry). The weather in Japan mountain area is still cold even in summer. And I learnt my lesson, in a VERY HARD WAY.

No one in their right mind will jump into the water
because it was freaking cold, macam air batu. Nak ambil
wuduk guna air ni pun aku fikir 10 kali.






         I know I should never believe him. I mean, I should never believe in his ability to withstand cold weather. He used to it! He used to live in winter! Who am I kidding? Yes, myself. He just wore a windbreaker and he was fine with it which was very contrary to my condition. Haha. I suffered and struggled and mentally exhausted throughout the whole 4 hours trekking (usually it takes about 3 hours trekking but we stopped at Akadake Konsen for rest) because of the coldness (yes, you can laugh all you want). I felt guilty to them because I complained about the weather too much that I think they felt annoyed. So sorry guys... T.T

Akadake kosen.



100 yen per entry.
You gotta be thankful for the seat warmer.




       The wind started to blow even stronger when we nearly got to the peak. Thick mist was everywhere and it was pretty hard to see. After struggling with the strong wind, thick mist and coldness (oh god), we reached the peak few minutes later (around 9.50AM). Many hikers were there as they were stranded due to bad weather. All of us wanted to proceed to Mount Aka, but could not do so as it was quite dangerous because there were parts where you have to climb to get to the peak. 



Thick mist was getting thicker.
Part ni gayat. Hmmmm...
Met the other hikers, stranded.



The peak of Mount Io, Southern Yatsugatake.
Yeay! Finally!
Picture credit : Nanas


          We decided to descend after taking few pictures. It was so cold, so windy, that I think our sweat starting to freeze. Really. Hontoni. Sota-san chose to use other trail for descend as it was more fun that way (according to him).

Apa? Sesat? Phone ada, apadehal. Most of the
mountains have phone coverage. Fuji has wifi.
Dia ni relax je cuaca sejuk pun.
Eh, geram pula aku tengok. Haha


We had a rest at Gyoujyagoya (mountain hut) for awhile and gave ourselves a chance to enjoy the view of Yatsugatake mountain range. It was magnificent. I always love Japan for their advanced technology, cleanliness and manners. But I never knew that their mountains are also beautiful!

Look at that pointy peak. That's the one we hiked,
Mount Io.
Southern Yatsgatake mountain range. I asked Sota-san,
how long will it takes to complete all peaks?
He said maybe around a week or two.
Aha! So this means REPEAT! hehe

You see that? That's Mount Aka (Akadake),
the highest peak of Southern Yatsugatake.
Camping site. You gotta pay for it.




            It was a sad thing that I broke my film camera on the first mountain (I accidentally dropped it, the advanced knob broke). So, no film pictures throughout the trip. Only the digital ones that I took using phone camera (cry even harder TT.TT).

The biggest mushroom I've ever seen in my whole life.






         We continued our journey to Minodo. We passed through river stream and mossy forest and stopped for awhile for some pictures. If you think Irau's mossy forest is pretty enough, well this one is even prettier. Hehe. After few hours trekking (probably about 2 hours more or less) we reached back to the Minodo trail head. Prayed and went back to Tokyo! Wohooo~

THE MAMMUT STAIRS!
I asked Sota-san, what's Mammut has to do with this?
He said maybe Mammut gave some amount of money
for this forest's conservation project.



I bet he's busy, so I just screenshot-ed the picture
from his Instagram. Haha.



It was Sota-san's first time seeing this.
We (me and Nanas) praying outside,
at the carpark, in the forest. Huhu.


         Thank you so much Sota-san and Nanas for being the best hiking buddy. Thank you Sota-san for the treat. Please do come to Malaysia, I will bring you out for hiking trip in Malaysia. Hehe.




p/s : Sorry for the not so pretty writing style that might caused bleeding eyes and heartache. XD. If you want to see my experience in video format, go to instagram.com/izzarosli. Thank you for reading. Hope it helps. :)



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