Saved by noodles

Unidentified wild mushrooms, rarely seen in the shops and gathered on the mountains by old hands whose knowledge I trust (almost) completely, glistened under red grains of schimi on a hot bed of udon noodles. No ordinary bowl of noodles this, it sat on the trestle table on the playground of a disused school which had lasted from the 1870's to the 1970's. All around were stalls and the ear-splitting distortion of an antiquated public address system not designed to take loud music. I ate with one finger in my bad ear. We were all here to help get the village back on the map and back on it's feet, and what better in a food-obsessed nation than a noodle festival to draw in the salivating punters?

A landslide in the spring downpours smashed down on a snow shed and made the main valley road south of Tamonashi unsafe to use. Rather more important than the inconvenience this caused to cyclist like myself, it severed the whole village from much of the tourist traffic that brings income to those who run accommodation, shops, and restaurants. Commuters had an extra hour of mountain roads to negotiate twice a day. Seven months of risky engineering work later, the road is open again, and the noodle festival was in full swing, run by volunteers from all over the area, and with lots of familiar faces behind the stalls.

Other dishes of a less culinary nature included the team of dancers having a lot of fun in their Kung Fu - looking costumes, leaping about on the gravel to blaring backing tracks, which must have echoed up the mountainsides to confused squirrels and bears disturbed in their mid-day snoozes up trees.

Upstairs in the old school, three rooms are a haunting home-made museum, each thing with its own hand written luggage label tied on with string. Many are still in use today, Aizu being itself a kind of living museum, but others a mystery. The walls carried fading photographs of the people for whom these objects were simply useful. The dusty clothes, patched and worn, sometimes, like the ankle length jacket, made from old futons and kimonos, were rawly personal, imprinted with the wearer's shape.

Uncomfortable information. A hand made aid for teaching anatomy

In the late afternoon musicians began to play to a scattering of people in the school gym.  I wondered where the young people were, as this gig was clearly aimed at them. Were they at home playing with their DS's, or in the shopping centres in Wakamatsu? When they dream of life in the cities isn't it just this kind of thing that they dream of going to? And yet when they have it here, they don't come.

Armed to a man or woman with acoustic guitars and the occasional harmonica, the performers were skilled singer-song writers in the efficient but somewhat off-the-peg mould that often afflicts many genres of Japanese popular music. If they were less skilled might it be better? Then they would have to invent their own ham-fisted and strange way of doing things and whatever is in them could come straight out.

The first two boys were winsome, poppy and sweet, the second a little more there, but the last performer was really good of her kind, though in all cases it was probably best not to understand the lyrics, like opera.

She played beautifully constructed slow acoustic songs with well judged and varied dynamics, her voice haunting and moving, creating that stillness and focus in the room that tells you the audience are no longer in it, but have floated out somewhere to meet the music. She deserved the young people to be here.

On the rack

Sun dried rice on the rack, with its rain hat on

Late September and Early October sees Aizu heavy with green-gold rice heaved onto tall racks, every doorstep full of aka kabucha (red pumpkins), walnuts, mushrooms from the mountains and all the riches of the harvest. Compliment someone on their sweet potatoes and you will get an armful, and bags of chestnuts and fungi like nipples arrive unbidden. It beats shopping, a warm glow of cash free exchange, no strings attached.

Drying rice in the sun is said to increase the flavour and increase nutrition, and fetches a premium over the more common machine-dried version. Here most is grown for personal consumption and to send to children long gone to the city. What will they do when the old ones are gone too, and their fields rank with weeds? Rice is much more than a food. The kanji character for a man resembles a paddy, and means "One who derives his power from rice."

Daikon thinnings and beans, chilled and washed in an old bath

Our neighbour opposite gets an extraordinary amount of produce from a small patch of ground, an endless round of seasonal food being trimmed, grated, pickled or dried for that day's food or for through the winter. This week it included walnuts. Nothing is wasted. An old tiled bath is used to both wash vegetables and keep them cool until meal time. Thinned out plants are eaten, leaves and all.

Despite our towny incompetence and reprehensible laziness some food miraculously leaped out of our own garden this year, and sometimes we had the satisfaction of meals entirely home grown, with only minutes from ground to plate, which must have come as a shock to the aubergines. This week I astounded the waiting world with my first attempt at green tomato and apple chutney and managed not to burn the house down. Unfortunately a nice bit of strong Cheddar to go with it is 5,000 miles away.

Our benign neglect produced enough for a daily meal for months.

The plants seem to be as resilient as the people. For example, in attempting to be organic we don't spray, but allowed some black caterpillars to get the upper hand, and five rows of autumn plantings were reduced to rags. We assumed that was the end of both them and our veg cred with the neighbours, but returned from three days away to see them resurgent and thriving. Amazing. They must be adapted to tolerating the insects' life cycle, or we were just lucky....or, come to think of it, the neighbours may have taken pity on us and sprayed them while we were away. Hmmm. Much more likely, come to think of it.
Don't come the innocent with me, madam

Kame mushi teleporting

Look: I can walk on glass. But that's not the clever bit....watch very carefully...Now I am on the outside

Now I am on the inside. You missed it? Shall I do it again, only slowly?

Brother insect

I don't know what you are, but you are sure as hell something my friend

This extraordinary creature, only one centimetre long, possibly mimicking the buds of a pine tree, or simply discouraging would be predators, is a stunning example of why, of all living things, we often find insects the hardest land - based form of life to identify with. Presumably it is a kind of caterpillar, but I have never seen the like before, and it made me very aware of my own body by its very difference - or rather mine. All hail you splendid beast - walking coral, luminous battleship, all bristling defences and spiked turrets!

A big blue Japanese dragonfly and its flying equipment

Living in Aizu means living in much closer proximity to insects, much closer to much bigger insects, which suits the boy in me better than the city girl in my wife, though even she is becoming accustomed. The sudden screams from the bowels of the house are less frequent eighteen months into our residency, as she gradually comes to accept our fellow residents, who strangely seem to think the house is theirs as much as ours.

I'm a leaf, I'm a leaf...oh shit, what's this white stuff?

The unprecedented heat of this summer was the mosquitoes' loss and the dragonflies' gain. Dragonflies are voracious predators and they have patrolled our garden in droves - but fortunately they, unlike mosquitoes, do not drink human blood, otherwise I would be sitting here an empty sac and typing might be a problem. They build them big here, like sharks suspended beneath assault helicopters - a winning combination.

The biggest dragonflies have green heads

They are welcome to eat all the insects that would otherwise eat our vegetables. In fact insect appetites and drives are increasingly inseparable from our own. Kusai mushi (stink bugs) for example, are currently trying to leave the cooling woods and return to the house they overwintered in last year - that would be ours. Who wouldn't rather be tucked up under a blanket in a cupboard than wedged in some bark under ten feet of snow? My beloved has a theory that they are able to beam themselves through glass. You see them gathering at the windows, then click! They are inside. But you never see them crawling through a crack. Never. There don't even appear to be any cracks around the windows, so she may be right. I have decided to live with them rather than against them. That way if they do have useful skills inherited via shreds of DNA discarded by advanced alien civilisations, they may see me right come the re-invasion.

Butterflies as big as your hand are higher in the cuddle-ability ratings

Big green stripey spiders are somewhat lower for some reason

Grandly decorated, with satisfyingly striped legs and a body that swells over the weeks to a pregnant green blob, these spiders grace every house and set a trap across every footpath in the autumn, getting bigger and rounder by the week. Judging by the litter of limbs and bodies trawled from the air in their nets, some of their own relatives, spouses and courtiers may have added to the banquet rather than merely attending it. And how is that different from the court of Henry VIII, or any modern dynastic tyrant?

As in any marriage it is sometimes hard to distinguish consummation from consumption

A long run on Adatara

Looking down at Numanotaira, the crater of Tetsu-zan in the Adatara range

The Adatara group of mountains in Fukushima, Japan consists of several stratovolcanos, including the highest, Minowa-yama 1718m (5,636ft), the active Testu-san 1709m (5,607ft), Funamyojin 1667m (5,469ft), Osho-yama 1601m (5,252ft), and Adatara-san itself 1699m (5,574ft)

Checking  out the route of an epic 53km (32 mile) mountain race provided a flimsy excuse to do the magnificently irrational and unreasonable, which is all that is ever required. It follows a star-shaped route over the tops, across and through the valleys of this dramatic and slightly scary area. A two hour drive, on which I was overtaken at speed by a demon grandma screaming along in her K van, brought me to the foot of Minowa-yama at the north end of the range. I had my revenge on the old folks though. Such was my blistering speed, I overtook at least seven septegenarians over the day. Ha. Eat my dust suckers....literally, no teeth you see.

Looking back northwards to Azuma volcano from the 'path' on Minowa-yama

How far you get on days like these depends a lot on the terrain , and what looks runnable on the map can turn out to be a battle through vegetation, as the paths grow back in so quickly, so I was prepared with an open mind and a full pack. The last 2k up to Minowa-yama was up a slippery clay path obscured with bamboo, so running risked clouting rocks and protruding branches. It would be fun and games in the rain, requiring a rich Anglo Saxon vocabulary.

A long spur heading down to the east was luckily more used, so provided you are slim enough you could see your feet, but the trees closed overhead at head height, forming a green tunnel strewn with blue flowers. Very pretty, but requiring running in homage to Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, hunched over and lurching to avoid branches. Running isn't supposed to hurt your neck, is it, master?

This utterly pointless height loss took me down to a river cutting down from Tetsu-zan. An elder was relieving himself in a smiling sociable kind of way, facing in my direction and barring the far end of the log bridge. Public peeing is not a matter for embarrassment for middle aged Japanese men, who stop willy nilly. He was decent and friendly by the time I reached him, and he had all his teeth. He was checking the bridge on behalf of the local onsen hotel, which depends on walkers, and he gave me a sweet. 

Chained waterfall routes in the valley east of Tetsu-zan

A gentle beginning to the climb back up, following the river on the other side of the valley, became more dramatic with drops and tumbling waterfalls, which had attracted a group of solemn women gorge scramblers. Further up I refilled my bottle. The water was a surprise, tasting strongly of minerals, which are probably either very good or very bad for you. There turned out to be a mountain hotel further up, so I hope their cesspit is in good order. Perhaps it wasn't minerals I was tasting...

Sanctuary! Adatara san from the bell near the top of the cable car

Popping out of the valley the hotel's rough track allowed some ordinary running, before more height loss and a climb up the ski ruined slopes up to Adatara. It was a busy path near the top, as most people get the cable car most of the way up, ideal for children and the elderly, like the man keen to try his English who was revisiting the peak after climbing it in his youth. There is an exorbitantly expensive cafe at the cable station, made more expensive by their habit of filling the glasses with ice before putting drinks in, halving the measure.

Such human irritations were wiped out by the panoramic views from the top of Adatara-san. I decided to give the 8 or 9 km southern loop of the race a miss, as it climbs Osho-yama to the south, then drops into the valley below before climbing to Funamyojin-yama, which is only 1km along the ridge from Adatara-san.

Osho-yama (1601m) on the southern end of the Adatara range

Tetsu-yama (Iron mountain) looking north from Adatara-san

Pretending not to be knackered 5 hours in

The rich ochre of the bare mountain path, gravel like gold nuggets spitting out from my studs, led to the rim of the volcanic crater itself. Let's be clear, this is not altogether a safe place to be. It was last active only in 1996, and fourteen years does not seem nearly enough when you are standing on the edge looking down at Numanotaira , the flat crater bottom, 350m below, which just looks plain wrong. There is a strong sulphurous smell, and steam or gas rises in places on the steep weather-worn orange and white slopes, down which it would be a very bad idea to go.

The crater from Tetsu-zan

In 1900 an eruption claimed the lives of at least 72 people, mostly miners digging sulphur - actually from the crater itself, god help them. To bring this closer to you, and to help you feel lucky if you are feeling a bit jaded at the computer (or tired from a hill run) it is worth looking at contemporary sulphur mining in Indonesia in a similar situation. The explosions and subsequent flows also swept away the refinery, lodging houses and hot spring buildings in the valley blow the outflow from the crater. I would shortly cross it.

Funamyojin-yama 1667m on the southern edge of the crater

Rejoining the race route over Funamyojin-yama, another descent and climb followed, this time very rough through the crags that rim the crater. The valley of the Io-gawa (the sulphur river) is littered with the remains of the 1900 disaster, and a tangle of modern pipes taking down onsen water and sulphur. The water in the river was hot enough for two people to be bathing their feet in it as an impromptu hot spa. It is an oppressive place I wouldn't want to linger in. Half the victims were caught trying to escape down this valley.

The sulphur river

Piping down hot sulphur-laden water for extraction

Some happier people in happier times were encountered on the next hill. Whoops and yells came from the slope strewn with house sized boulders where some young climbers seemed to be not settling down for the night. After getting over the bad step onto the crags at the top of the northern side it was up to the emmergency hut 500m NW of the top of Tetsu-zan. A happy couple just beat me there, and didn't mind me having a look at their love nest.

He drew a line down his chest, the gesture to explain that he had had an operation. That must lend an added edge to the pleasure of still being able to get up here and spend the night in such a place, cosy at 5,000ft with miles of space all around, mountain silhouettes receding into the evening light. Just look at the smiles on their faces. I forced some chocolate on them to buy some sitting down time, then headed off to re-climb Minowa-yama, which had been my first peak in the morning.

Testsu-san and the emmergency hut at dusk: what were they doing now?

I knew the light would fade fast now - it is dark by 6 o'clock in September, and the night can fall like a door shutting. I was glad that I could still run after 9 hours, and by now I was tuned in to these washed out boulder and root strewn paths. The sun put on its best evening frock and twirled its way into the night over the lakes of Urabandai as I quickstepped it down. 

I only needed my puny little light for the last few yards on the road so that the cars could see me. That demon grandma might still be around.

Bear attack

You wait for ages for a bear, then three come along at once

3.

It had been a good celebration, after all, the volleyball team had won an area trophy, and  beverages had been consumed. He got a taxi home at 9.30, but didn't ask it to drop him at his door - the main road would do, and he would walk up. When you have grown up with bears around and nothing happens to you for thirty odd-years, you assume nothing will happen for the next thirty. It was dark on the small road up through the village and the allotments, but he saw it coming for him, a black bear that had probably been surprised raiding the kabucha pumpkins. It was on him fast, raking his back and legs with deep claw marks, and catching his nose as he scrabbled to stand up again and run. He managed it, and made it to his door, bleeding but in one piece, thankfully for his wife and two young children.

Lots of stitches and a few days in hospital later, he was home again. Enquiries and solicitations were met with abashed apologies - they were really were so very sorry to have caused people worry, really very sorry. Had the bear been shot? Well, probably that wasn't going to happen. After all, it was just unlucky, and what with the numbers of people working and growing vegetables and rice in the hills above the village, it would be dangerous for hunters to begin shooting there.

This was the first bear attack in our village for ten years, but it had felt that it was only a matter of time. Despite the regular warnings of sightings on the council's public address system, the fireworks let off in the evening, and people exchanging stories about which of their crops had been raided, there was no discernible change in people's behaviour. It is seen as a chance occurrence, that happens or not, and so be it. In fact we had a party of our own in the village that night, after which my wife's cousin, wove uncertainly with a big smile on his face, down the main road, despite our protestations and offers of a lift "Daijobu, daijobu..." he said, fuzzily ("It's OK, its OK..."), and as luck would have it, he was.

2.

Suddenly it filled the windscreen, huge and sprinting in freeze frames, Muybridge style, burnt into the retina, lolloping across the road, bleached in the full beam headlights, it's shaggy pelt flowing in waves like an Afghan hound.  Half way up the road past the ski centre in the dark at 8.30, our first full on broadside sight of a bear - a big one. We must have surprised it crossing back into the woods from raiding the allotment on the right. I'm glad the brakes worked. I'm glad I wasn't on my bike. We sat for a few minutes as it sank in, a thing not to be forgotten in a hurry. Further on, more moonstruck animals leaped before us - a Tanuki, and a few minutes later, a Japanese marten ran down the road in the lights for half a mile, not turning into the safety of the forest. A night of full moon, a week before the attack.

1.

It's head, comically exactly and unmistakeably bear-shaped, after eighteen months of expecting to see one any day, poked out like a theatrical prop on a stick from between someone's house and their car at the edge of the village - the biggest village that stands in for an actual town round here. Bloody hell, that is actually a bear! What happens if someone steps out for a smoke or to nip to the shop? It clocked my headlights, and ducked back in sharpish, looking sheepish (for a bear) a bungling teenage criminal looking for a main chance. My first bear sighting, luckily from a car, ten days before the attack.

The trucks and cars on the valley road are probably more dangerous, but with that progression, we really don't need a fourth bear.

Asahi-dake

A 1,624m (5,328ft) mountain near Tadami in Fukushima, Japan

The long summit ridge of Mt Asahi, from the only clear path to it. The top is on the right

If you feel, as I do, the occasional  need to scourge the flesh, scrub the eyeballs with some blinding beauty, and give yourself a good corrective battering against the laughably grand forces of gravity, the weather and geological time, then Asahi-dake, with it's 3,800ft of climb in 4km on the path approaching from the north east, will assuredly do the trick. Sitting on the edge of a wilderness area with few paths, it's scrub-covered summit ridge stretches from north to south, cut by cliffs and snow-scoured sweeping slabs.

Creepy mannequins slump by the signs around the 'cook your catch' fish farm, the only house at the end of a ten minute drive up a single track black top deep into a steeply cut valley leading off route 239 south of Tadami. Though they had an acre of empty grass, the man in the lean-to workshops asked me to park at the official mountain car park up the rough road beyond, which threatened to bottom out the car. Having nursed it, and an uncharitable thought or two, through to the empty car park, I jogged jingling into the salad, disguised as a runner, rucsac well stocked with gear, bear spray, and 2 and a half litres of water for the hot and humid day.

Into the salad - the lush beginnings of the path

After a gently climbing 1500m of recently strimmed path following a stream, the route kicks up into the regular zigzags of the climb proper. A spring near the bottom of this was the last water, and the serious business of sweating began, dissolving into a solution equal parts blood, salt and foliage, the skin loosing it's usual power as a barrier between the self and the landscape. It was hot and heavy, frogs and grasshoppers leaping from the path, always upwards and under trees, until the gaining the ridge gave some respite and an expansive view of an avalanche scarred wilderness.

Snow erosion scars, with only the ridge crests sustaining mature trees

The top of Mt Asahi was now bobbing in and out of view, as the path climbed the ridge butting onto it from the north east. Beautiful trees contorted by snow and age live here, their mangled roots grappling the path for control. The biggest are  labelled with their girth and height, lending a disconcertingly park-like air to this wild place. The substantial unmanned metal hut 500m NE of the top was also disconcertingly locked - something that should never happen in a place where emergencies might easily demand it to save someone's life. Mine for example! The poetry of sweating prose aside, I have no desire to merge entirely just yet...

Easy roped rock slabs amongst long grass lead to the ridge of Asahidake itself, and a welcome slump gazing over the crags and pathless depths to the west.

 Looking back not far from the top

Looking west from the summit ridge

The top itself is defaced by an ugly aluminium cylinder with plaque on top. It looks like a prop from a failed 70's science fiction plot and it is not actually on the highest point for some reason, but don't hold that against this wonderful mountain. Suitably scourged, scrubbed and battered by the climb, I had the place to myself, and was feeling all roughty-toughty, he-manly and terribly adventurous.

Cue cursing and thrashing from the bushes on the overgrown section of the ridge leading in from the wilds. Out popped two exhausted young men, throwing their big sacs down and laying down by them. They had only been and gone and done five days backpacking through the trackless mountains. That means fighting your way through scrub, bamboo and trees on the ridges, cutting a way where needed, carrying a lot of water as well as gear. Their three mates were still thrashing through it as we chatted. It also meant they got through the huge electric storm the night before, camping at a high level. They wouldn't own to have actually enjoyed the whole thing, but they at least had enough humour left to suddenly strike poses when I asked to take their pictures. Nice.

Hero 1: perky

Hero 2: pensive

Distant rumbles and a darkening sky heralded a repeat performance of the previous day's storm, and I was glad to be able to run down and get off quickly. I hoped that they weren't depending on the hut. As the rain became a downpour and the very convincing (if a little overdone) sound effects came closer I hoped the boys were OK. Of course they were.

The thunderheads piling up