I got really fed up with sitting at home because of covid. So instead I rented a car and went for a snowy hike where I wouldn’t be likely to run into people: Mt Asama, an active volcano. In fact I only ran into 1-2 people on the way.

While other countries have pretty harsh lockdown rules (from what I hear on the news), Japan is pretty lax about that. While commuting to work by train is discouraged, I figured going up in the mountains (where there are hardly any people) it can’t hurt, right?

If you’ve watched Yama no Susume, then you’ve heard of Mt Tanigawa. It’s the goal of a major arc of the story and an important memory to the characters. I went there in a different season though (in the snow), but didn’t climb the main summit. For no particular reason other than I didn’t realize the summit I was at wasn’t the highest point. Whoops.

Not the carrier. Not the anime. The mountain. (After which the carrier was named, by the way.) It’s not one of those jagged, snow-capped “cool” mountains. It’s a relaxed, even comfy mountain. At 1400-and-a-little meters high with gentle slopes, it’s a good day’s escape from Tokyo’s chaos.