Tsurugi & Tateyama

Hike organized by Kanto Adventures. I joined this hike last year but it was cancelled due to a typhoon. The hike can be done in 2 days, although the plan include 3 days to have flexibility. We ended up doing it in 2 days since we spent the second day in the hut due to bad weather. Tsurugi has some of the best views of the Japanese Alps. And it is even better with the autumn colours. Day 1 -------- The day started in Ogizawa, which is the starting point to get to Murodo plateau. It is a journey that requires taking a bus, a cable car, a ropeway and another bus. Due to this access, the crowd in Murodo is a mixed of hikers and visitors, with some tourists here and there. But in the early rides is mainly hikers. The first day target was to get to Kensanzo hut via Tateyama. Map time was around 6 hours, time was not a concern so we did some walk around the plauteau. The autumn colours 🍂🍁 already started. After the walk we started the climb to the 3 peaks of Tateyama. It is a relatively easy hike therefore it was very crowded, especially to the first peak. We continued to the second peak, which is the highest. At that point the clouds closed in and we didn't have any views during most of the trail, except eventual clearings. The situation got better arriving to Kensanzo, we could have the first views of Tsurugidake. We got to the hut finally and checked in. Kensanzo is the only hut I've been that has showers, all of us (group of 9) took a refreshing shower before dinner (they served tonkatsu that day 😋). Day 2 -------- The original plan was to hike Tsurugi on this day, but weather was really bad, with strong wind. So we spent the day at the hut. Kensanzo is almost a ryokan than a hut. It has very comfortable rooms, with several extra futons to adjust your needs for sleeping comfortably. It also serves food and drinks, so you can have lunch there. They have a proper fridge for the drinks. The downside is the signal reception, which is bad or non-existing. They have wifi but it is only for the staff 🙄, I wonder why they don't share it with customers, but knowing the personality of the manager, who is not so friendly, it is kind of understandable. The rest of the staff was quite nice, though. We witness a shift of the youngsters among the staff, 4 of them were leaving and others arrived. The day was a sort of team building event since we spent lot of time hanging out, drinking and eating together. Also napping some of us. Day 3 -------- The summit to Tsurugidake was climbed this day. It is a tough hike, mentally more than phisically, due to the technicallity of the climb. We used helmets, harness and via ferrata sets or carabiners, although I saw people not using them. Most of the chain sections are not difficult or scary, although this depends on everyone experince. Some of the climbs can be done without using the chains if you have climbing or bouldering experience. Before Tsurugidake you have to climb Maetsurugi, meaning there are some ups and downs on the trail. You have to pay attention to the trail mark colours, some sections have different path for going up and down: the red marks (either ⭕ or arrows) are for going down. We finally arrived to the top and it was crowded, but the views were absolutely stunning. One of our colleagues completed the hyaku meizan by climbing Tsurugi and we had a celebration, although we couldn't spend much time due to time constraints. And every one was taking lots of photos 🤪. We started the descent, and we faced the most scary section of the climb: a zone where is difficult to set the foot due to the shape of the rock. It is useful that someone in front of you guides your foot work. Some sections are knee-knocking if you don't have poles (like in my case). We eventually got back to Kensanzo, where we had a break and took off the climbing gear, also picked the stuff left to travel light. We hike back to Murodo plateau and repeated the chain of buses and ropeways to reach Ogizawa and get back to Tokyo.