Alex woke me up at 7:10 in the morning so that we could eat breakfast before it closed at 8. There were several new things to eat there today: cold pickled fish, bacon and sausage cooked at the table in a tin, cold poached egg in a clear liquid (rice vinegar?), and natto - fermented soy beans. There was a surprising amount of stringy, fermented goo that kept making a long stringy mess between my mouth, my beard, chopsticks, the natto, and anything else I touched. The trick was to stir the natto up with chopsticks, add some soy sauce, and eat them with rice. I found them just a little too...bitter? (But now I kind of feel like they'd be a nice snack). Overall, it was a very salty meal.
We went back to the room, grabbed our bags, and headed out for a massive mountain adventure. We planned to take a tram to the mountain tops, hike out to a caldera and the mountain peak, and then climb all the way back down to the bus station to take us back to the Yamagata station and the shinkansen to Tokyo.
We started out on the main road, following our map to the Zao Sanroku Ropeway Line, stopping only to buy some snacks (nigori, croissant with red bean paste, black chocolate cubes, and orange juice for me). We bought one way tickets up and rode the first stage facing the mountain so that we could see the ski slopes and gondolas disappearing into the clouds. Then we rode the Sanchou Line to the mountain top facing backwards so we could watch Yamagata and Zao Onsen disappear as we reached the cloud line.
Up there, most of the trees were totally burnt and dead looking from the wind. When we got off, the weather was extremely windy and cold (1.5 °C according to a sign at the mountain's base). I felt really stupid up there, having left my hat and gloves back in Alex's humid and hot Tokyo apartment. I ended up putting my raincoat on over my wool sweater with the hood up, and walked with my hands in my pockets in hopes that would be warm enough. We rang a big bell for good luck, and then walked out past a big Buddha statue and then up to Sanpokojinsan peak (1,703 m ~5,600 ft), which was only a few minutes of vigorous running away via a steep path. We took the more gradual path back, and set off for the caldera that all these peaks branched off from.
Alex and I followed a steep trail that was initially vegetated towards Jizo-san peak. After a while, the trees ended and we were mostly walking into high winds from then on. The trail resembled a railroad track made of broken stones more than the cut trails that I'm used to. Large basalt cubes were placed in long parallel lines, and the space between was filled with basalt chunks, which were very uncomfortable to walk on. We ended up walking on top of the sides instead, stepping on the high points rather than walking along naturally. There were also tall posts regularly spaced along the trail so that there was something to follow in deep fog, or if the trail was totally covered by snow.
We reached Jizo-san Peak (1,736 m ~5,700 ft), where there was no view because clouds. We went down the other side to a saddle, where this creepy statue sat on a pile of broken rocks. Its head had a scary smile, and the body was from a different statue.
The next part was confusing. We wanted to walk to the next peak and then the caldera, but we went straight to the caldera rim and then back to the peak without realizing it. At Mt. Kumano ("bear field peak"), there was a small shrine with a hut, which was full up with people taking shelter from the wind. We ate some of the food we brought for a lunch out in the wind, and then set off again, almost going down the wrong side of the mountain by accident. We got on the right track, and walked to the caldera rim, which was totally obscured by clouds. We stood on the edge and looked around at the parts of the sheer drop that we could see, and then headed back.
When we got to some stone huts we'd passed earlier, we realized that we'd gone to the peak in a roundabout way. We followed the path back to the creepy statue and went down the mountain side by the haraikawa course ("exorcism river" [!!!]). that took us to the iroha bog, where the trail was replaced by raised wooen tracks through a swampy clearing. By then we'd finally gotten out of the wind.
As we exited the bog, our previous plan to cross the mountain and descend to Zao Onsen was forgotten as soon as we ran into the Utopia ski lift, which was actually running. We rode it down for the sheer novelty, and got some great views of Yamagata and Zao Onsen as the clouds began to clear up at last. We paid ¥240 for the ride and then tried to figure out where we were.
We determined our only way back to our planned route was to walk back up the hill to the top of the lift, but as we set out we found an open ski slope with such great views that we just kept walking down along it.
Then we got a little lost, but we found ourselves on our map when we crossed a road and a closed gondola line. We took another slope down, getting just a little bit less lost this time, and then found ourselves at Zao Astoria Hotel, a big ski resort. We didn't want to hike straight down the ski slope right in front of the rope way station and maybe get in trouble, so we started down a road we could follow.
I immediately noticed a nice cement-channeled waterfall with a path opposite the road, and we decided to cross over to it rather than keep going down with car traffic. We jumped across the waterfall, and got onto the trail, which was on the map and went through some beautiful forest that reminded me a lot of the Pacific Northwest. Along the way we went through a bunch of weeds that stuck to our pants and stained them with black spots from the seeds.
Our trail took us to Shigi no Yachi Pond ("Sandpiper's Marsh Pond"), which we walked down to and along until we found a trail back up to Zao Onsen. We talked about getting some pizza in Zao Onsen, but then we remembered that everything would be closed there between lunch and dinner. So we went into a curry shop and ordered some beef curry with fries.
While waiting for our food, Alex got up to help an Israeli couple who came in and were having trouble ordering their food. We asked if it would be alright for us to sit together, and spent the rest of the meal talking about each other's travels. I immediately forgot their names, but they were both accountants from Tel Aviv spending three weeks in Japan. We were both apparently up at Kumano Peak at the same time. They offered us jasmine tea, and we shared our fries.
Alex and I left before them to buy some souvenier snacks at an omiyage shop, and then we went to get on the bus for Yamagata. We were about to depart when the Israeli couple showed up just in time for the bus. they gave us some fruity jelly bean things, and then we didn't really talk after that. Everyone was pretty tired. We said goodbye at the station, and Alex and I got onto a shinkansen for Tokyo.
Back in Alex's neighborhood of Kugayama, we picked up some Indian food (mixed veggie curry, garlic naan, and chaat samosa - which comes with a bunch of creamy-curry like sauce over square samosas). It was weird ordering Indian food in Japanese, especially because the menu items were all English words for Indian food adapted for Japanese. We also stopped at a kombini ("convenience store") and got some yogurt drinks to stand in for lassis. I also finally found an ATM to withdraw cash and pay back Alex for almost everything that we'd done that weekend.
We took our food and drinks back to Alex's and watched the second round of U.S. presidential debates, which was easily the most exhausting part of our day.
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