Very early start today, I assume to avoid glacier melt as much as possible. Woke up before it even started getting bright. The terrain the same rolling glacier landscape as the days before. Lots of up-and-down, pretty exhausting.
To Goro II
Once again I got scammed. Every day they’d tell us something like “breakfast at 7, we leave at 8” then they’d be shaking my tent at 6 and we’d hit the trail before 7. So today I was way ahead of the announced schedule, but they were yet another half an hour early.
Onto the glacier
Pretty tough and long hike. Loose rocks all the way made it really exhausting. The Sherpas were of course moving really quick, so I felt pretty drained when we stopped for lunch.
Reaching shade
20km or so trek to Paju camp (about 3300m). Only 200m gain, but lots of up-the-cliff down-to-the-river all day so my watch was saying 700m climb total.
The visa ordeal
I’ve been planning an expedition to Broad Peak and K2 for almost two years now. At first the plan was to climb last summer, but then covid ruined that. The expedition was then rescheduled to this summer, while last summer I visited Denali instead. However my departure to Pakistan faced some unexpected obstacles.
のこぎりひので
大型遠征が近づくと、体力を整えるためにトレーニングで行く登山の時間も伸びるが、毎週毎週同じ道歩くのも飽きる。御岳から名栗湖に抜けるルートは楽しいが、代替もほしいので今度は奥多摩から鋸山、大岳山、御岳山と日の出山を超えるルートを試してみた。最初行ったときは逆方向で御岳から登ったが、日の出山から下るようにすることで終わったらつるつる温泉に入れるのでありがたい。
棒が折れた
御嶽駅から惣岳山超えて岩茸石山を往復するのは定番のトレーニングルート。往復で3時間ちょいで始発で行くなら午前中に家に帰れる半日の計画。一方で電車の方も同じぐらいの時間がかかってちょっともったいないの気持ちにもなる。それと、大型遠征が近づくとトレーニングで動きたい時間も長くなるから3時間じゃ足りない。新穂高から西穂か槍行く手はあるが、金銭的に東京周辺がありがたい。時間的に雲取山も選択肢に入るが、そこはあまりにもルートがおもしろくなくて毎週のようには行きたくない。岩茸石山のルートでずっと気になってた「関東ふれあいの道」を調べたらひらめいた。
Getting advanced mountain gear in Japan
You’d expect that with Japanese people being among the top mountaineers on 8000 peaks, the country having a healthy scene for winter sports it shouldn’t be hard to get advanced mountain gear, right? Let’s share some stories.
Ecuador
There are a few mountains other than the seven summits that I’m interested in climbing for other reasons. One of those is Chimborazo, a mountain in Ecuador that has the interesting property that its summit is further from the center of Earth than that of Mt Everest (because of the planet’s shape). It’s also a phrase my late gran used to use as an expression of “the greatest magnitude”—I think in her day that was common as it was believed to be the highest mountain. This connection is why I got interested and went on an expedition to climb Cotopaxi and Chimborazo.
My tents
The first time I spent nights in the mountains was back in 2018, when I hiked from Mt Kobushi all the way to Mt Mizugaki. At that point I was staying in mountain huts, so I didn’t need a sleeping bag or mat. I think my first time sleeping in a tent in the wild was actually in the foothills of Elbrus in 2019 (not counting sleeping in a tent during summer festivals back in Hungary). Then it was even later, the summer of 2020 that I first stayed in my own tent during a multi-day trip. It was soon after that I actually hiked up a mountain, Mt Kai-koma to stay in a tent at altitude.
