Have you ever been driving late at night with hours to go before reaching your destination, sleep not yet weighing on your eyelids but the fatigue of a long day and a long drive setting in? During those times, have you looked at the darkened houses beside the road and seen the light on in a bedroom and imagined that you were in a cozy room there and preparing to settle in to a fresh-smelling, comfortable bed, ready to let your weary body rest and send your mind off to dreamland?

I was driving through Nagano and it was nearing 11PM. My destination still lay at least three hours away, maybe more. I had a CD in the player and was enjoying the music, a drink was in the drink holder and some snacks on the passenger seat. It was a private party for one and I was starting to feel the party would be over soon. Those darkened houses concealed slumbering bodies and resting minds while the metal and glass bubble of my car carried me on down the highway, a cocoon of sleepless activity and sound, chasing the darkness of night with my headlights; a chrysalis slowly transforming me from an alert being diving towards tomorrow into a sleepy head who wouldn’t find tomorrow unless he gave in to a couple of hours of unconsciousness.

It was an ambitious plan I had laid out for myself, and I new from the beginning that I might have to trim back the objectives a bit. After work on Saturday I was to drive over six hours from Saitama City to the western ranges of the North Alps in Gifu Prefecture. The plan was to sleep a couple of hours in the car and then begin a 7 and a half-hour hike with a 1,450m elevation gain up to a camp site while carrying about 35 kg on my back. Then over the next three days I planned to climb four of Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains (Hyakumeizan), the last one being a little off the path of my route back down. Each of the three climbing days clocked out to over 12 hours on my feet, not including rest and photography time. I knew it was probably going to be too much.

I finally allowed myself to succumb to sleep at 2AM, pulled over to the side of a winding mountain highway, reclined the seat and dozed for a couple of hours. When I awoke the first suggestion of dawn light was eradicating the darkness of the cloudy night. By six I was driving around under a clearing sky, looking for a place to park. With the five-day weekend (four for me) any free parking space and even some that said “no parking” was occupied. I drove up to the bus terminal and prepared my pack, dropping it off by the toilets, before driving back down the road to find a place to park. It was a 15-minute walk back again. Though I had planned a schedule for each day, it was an hour later on my schedule that I began heading up to the trailhead. Surprisingly, I was faster than expected and I passed everyone else on the forest service road that was the first hour and a half of the route. When I reached my first check point I was only a half hour behind schedule and I had already rested five minutes at a lodge along the way.

It was while going up the steeper path that climbed up over rocks through the trees that I knew I would need more time. Sure enough, many people began passing me as I tried to keep a steady pace with all the weight on my back. Being the only non-Japanese person on the route and carrying such a big pack made me an instant celebrity. Many times I was asked where I was from, how much my pack weighed and where I was heading. I took breaks as necessary and even rested for a half hour at one point in order to revitalize myself. At last I reached Kagami Daira (Mirror Flats) where a bench land on a mountainside holds a few small ponds and looks out over the Yari/Hotaka Range. A wooden deck by one pond was the perfect place to relax, eat lunch, drink, and do a bit of photography. The autumn leaves were making their first show of colour already, a surprise since when I was there in mid-October three years ago the colours were just right then. This year the colours were turning three weeks earlier.

An over-extended break here and I was off for the ridge above. The timing was going to be tricky. If I took too long I would have to stop on the ridge to shoot the sunset light on Yari/Hotaka. If I tried to reach the tenting site and set up I might miss the chance to shoot the glow of sunset on the mountains. Along the way I looked for places suitable to stop and prepare my cameras but I somehow felt I had to keep going to reach the tent site. At last I reached it a half hour before sunset. I had decided to just throw down my pack to hold a place and run up the nearby peak from where there was a great view of Yarigatake. But the tent site was filling up rapidly and if I just dropped my pack there was the chance that someone with a small tent would set up near me and close in the space I needed for my tent. I went ahead and set up camp, then bolted with my camera gear for the trail up the mountain. But it was too late. The sun was gone for the day.

My phone alarm buzzed me awake at 3 o’clock. I ate breakfast and prepared my gear, and then set out by 3:30 to start going up Mt. Sugoroku. The foot of the mountain is a little steep but further up it levels off into an unusually shaped mountain with a flat curved back like a whale’s. The summit is a raised heap of rock and sand with dwarf pine and small grasses and flowering plants filling the cracks and gaps between the boulders. I made it up before 5 o’clock and had lots of time to prepare for the sunrise. It was cold at first, even with my winter jacket on, but once the sun came up and I got busy photographing the view of the Yari/Hotaka Range and the other surrounding mountains I warmed up. At first there had been only one other man up there with me. But after sunrise a couple of dozen people came up and it was pretty noisy and crowded. I left 20 minutes later from Sugoroku than planned because so many people were walking through a scene I had composed that I couldn’t get the shot I wanted so easily.

From Sugoroku I followed the ridge down and up over to Maru Mountain, and then on to Mt. Mitsumata Renge. From here I had a good view over to Mt. Kurobegoro, one of my target mountains for the trip, and over to Mt. Washiba and Mt. Suisho, my two targets for the day. Mt. Kasa, my target for the last day, was far behind me now. I went down to the lodge between Mitsumata and Washiba and took a much needed toilet break, and then began climbing up the slopes of Washiba. Partway up I turned and looked into a small pond sitting in a volcanic crater. This crater is unusual because there are no volcanoes immediately around Washiba and the mountain itself is composed mostly of granite. However, there was a lot of ash and pumice rock on the way over to the campsite and the location of the Washiba volcanic crater would seem just right to have provided the area with pumice.

I was still behind schedule when I reached the summit of Washiba and the clouds to the west and southwest were starting to climb over the mountains. Still, Mt. Suisho was close enough that I thought I would at least try to reach the Suisho Hut and see how the time was going then. It was 2 o’clock when I arrived at the hut and had to buy mineral water because I was out of water. Rain water was cheaper but only available to guests at the hut. I heard it was full to capacity with newcomers being asked to share one futon between three people. I also heard draught beer was sold out with much groaning coming from three older men. I was surprised to see a woman working in the kitchen of the hut with a six-month old baby on her back and later sitting in a baby seat on the table. The hut didn’t have much in the way of accommodation facilities even for the staff, and I wondered how the mom was able to care for her baby adequately in a small hut at about 2,700 metres.

I went over to the last leg of the climb up Mt. Suisho. Here one had to start climbing up a ladder and then using hands and feet, scramble over the rocks to reach the summit. It was already 2:30 though and I knew it would take about 30 minutes to the top and 30 minutes back down again. I told myself I was OK not to reach the summit of Suisho this time. I had to be sure I was OK not to go. I didn’t want to be regretting it all the way back. As I began to head back I ran into three people I had met on the way up the day before. I chatted with them as I went back to the hut. They told me of a shortcut back to their tent site at the Mitsumata Lodge. I could avoid having to climb over Washiba again. From there I could take another shortcut route that went around the smaller peaks I had traversed earlier that day. I could save a bit of time. I went with the three people most of the way, sometimes stopping for photos of the scenery while they went ahead, sometimes joining up with them and stopping in a ravine to pick berries. It was an enjoyable time. I usually move alone and don’t have the opportunity to chat and enjoy people’s company.

The route went down and down, too far down, into the ravine where the headwaters of the Kurobe River start their journey. Then it climbed back up again. The autumn colours were already turning and the mountain ash were red and yellow. The clouds were blocking out the sun now but as I neared their camp a strip of autumn foliage was lit up by a beam of sunshine that had found a small gap in the clouds. I dashed ahead of the three hikers and rushed up to find a clear view near their campsite but found none. I waited until it seemed sunset was over and without having seen much nor photographed anything of the evening light, I began the last strip of the journey back to the tent – two and a half hours along another shortcut that I had little idea about.