Frank Climbs Mt. Hakusan

While Melissa went to the Shirotori Dance Festival with the girls, Frank went hiking and camping at Mt. Hakusan with Steve, Matt, and Chelsea. Hakusan is one of the three most spiritual mountains in Japan, along with Mt. Fuji and Mt. Tate, and is 8,865 ft. (2702 m) tall. A Buddhist priest opened Mt. Hakusan in 717, so it is known as a religious mountain that has a small secluded shrine on the top. Mt. Hakusan is a volcanic mountain that erupted many times about 100 million years ago but is now dormant.

We began at the base around 1:30pm and climbed about 5 and 1/2 hours until we reached the summit. The scenery was beautiful on the mountain. There were many trees, exotic flowers, rivers, and lakes on 2 sides of the mountain. The views were much better than Mt. Fuji (which we climbed the weekend before), which was mainly volcanic rocks and sand.

I didn't get altitude sickness as I did on Mt. Fuji, but the climb was almost as difficult. Our packs were much heavier than on Fuji because of all the camping equipment we were carrying...we had our sleeping bags and mats, tents, stoves, food for a few meals, and water along with a change of clothes, jackets, fleeces, and rain gear.

We reached the summit around 6:00pm and enjoyed looking around the shrine and posing for pictures. Unfortunately it was very cloudy so there wasn't a great view. After looking around a while, we started our descent down the other side of the mountain. After we found a level area (about a 20 min. hike from the summit) we set up our tents and cooked dinner (finishing as it got dark). It was really cold with snow and ice still on the ground. It started to rain soon after, so we all hung out in Matt and Chelsea's tent for a while, then headed to bed early since we were so tired and wanted to see the sun rise in the morning at 4:30.



At 3:45am, we woke up to watch the sun rise, but it was still really cloudy so we didn't see much. Around 4:30am, as we were packing up, we were passed by a long line of Japanese people hiking to the summit. One woman approached us and told us we were not allowed to camp on the mountain, so we had to hurry up and leave.

The way down was much easier. We circled around the side of the mountain to hit 3 other smaller peaks than got back on the main trail to head back down. It took us a little over 3 hours and the views were amazing. We all went to an onsen (public bath) after we reached the bottom and then headed back to Gifu.

We had a great time and I am looking forward to the next time we go camping and bringing Melissa. The only equipment we still need is a tent (Steve and I shared his for this trip). Hiking tents are much smaller and lighter than normal tents...Steve's weighed about 2kg (a little over 4lbs) which even included the poles and rain fly. So it looks like we'll be spending more money....I hope we can do some hiking back home in the States.