As such it is revered by a small army of Japanese tourists who convene upon it daily, rain or shine. They rise up at 4 am, uniformly and comprehensively equipped with spandex, rain gear, walking poles, propane tanks, pots and pans, noodles, packets of curry, the newest hiking boots, etc., etc., to be led by energetic guides into the heart of the island. Although most of them are not even staying the night in the mountains, they look equipped for some sort of divine natural catastrophe. This army is disproportionally old, retired, which, incidentally, is probably true of Japan in general.
GOD DAMNED MONKEYS
Walking on the auto path leading up to the trailhead, we encountered a whole mess of monkeys. Previous experience with the monkeys on this island made me think they were basically the friendly, cute sort; not only where they fuzzy, they were Japanese as well, two reliable markers of harmlessness.
So I approached them with the general, “aw, monkey dudes” attitude and didn’t notice, until Ashley mentioned it, that the biggest alpha male fucker was staring me down with bared pearly whites. “Don’t make eye contact with him”, she said, a bit too late, since I had been looking back at him, thinking, “This fucking twerp is like ¼ size of me”. Then the brute started on this low growl, which reminded me of a story I read about a woman who had her face ripped off by a chimp.
We started to back away, kind of looking at the space around the monkeys while trying to monitor them through peripheral vision. I was hoping that after giving them a wide berth, they would move on. Instead the alpha male eerily followed, staring at us intently the whole time. Then the rest of the pack came with him, about 20 or so monkeys; perhaps emboldened by our cowardice, a few other big lower echelon beta males and some scrawny teenager types also started giving us nasty looks.
At this point my hackles were pretty raised and I rummage around the side of the road for a cudgel, swung it around a few times, wishing that instead of a stick, I had an AK-47, or maybe a shotgun, an elephant rifle modified into a hand gun (used with great effectiveness by Charles Bronson in Death Wish 3 to unburden this world of a few thugs; and these monkeys were most certainly thugs), or any of the other manifold human inventions which put us above the animals. And I was sure that if I could just put a few lead slugs right though this punks bared, salivating, teeth, knocking his incisors straight through his relatively well developed brain (hopefully, developed enough to rue the day), the explosive sound of a gun going off and the visage of the alpha males head exploding into crimson mist, his decapitated body first tottering around, as if drunk, and then toppling over, would be enough to scatter the pack.
But what ended up happening was that Ashley made some noise by banging our sticks against a railing (somewhat effective), waited some more and decided to try to walk quickly, but firmly, through the monkey gauntlet. Our walking soon broke into a light jog as we realized that the alpha monkey was definitely running after us. For about 20 seconds it seemed like more and more monkeys (big ones, little ones, all) were just appearing out of the trees just to give us chase and the jog turned to full on run and it just seemed like a scene from a shitty horror movie. At some point there weren’t anymore anus-faced primates behind us anymore, and we stopped, out of breadth, embarrassed and kind of exhilarated.
OF MICE AND DEER
Nothing too eventful happened on the rest of the hike; no more monkeys. Most of the trail followed a portion of a small gauge mountain railroad that winds throughout the mountain. The forest was, of course, stunning and even the weather cleared up. We started the hike much later than any reasonable Japanese tourist ever would so the only people we met were coming down the mountain. We reached Jomon Sugi about 1 hour before it got dark, pretty tired; it turned out to be a pretty optimal time to arrive, and we were alone with the tree, not a single other tourist in sight.
About 10 minutes from the tree, there is a nice little mountain hut, just a concrete box with some bunks you can spread your sleeping bag on. Theoretically fits 20 people (if crammed like sardines), but that night there were just 3 other people in it, and we basically took up the entire upper area of the bunk. Ashley and I tucked into a dinner made unreasonably delicious by caloric deficiency and watched a beautiful sunset from a window that pointed directly west. I went outside for a smoke, pissed (also pointed west) and pondered the glory of the dying day.
When I got inside the other 3 people, a guide and two youngish women, were already getting ready for bed; they said something about getting up at 5 am so they could be the first people at Jomon Sugi. We were pretty beat too and I think everyone was tucked in by 9. It was kind of a rough night though, because there were all these incredibly cute but annoying mice everywhere. All you heard in the dead silence of the night was their feverish scampering, the ripping and chewing of plastic bags; every once in a while one would scurry around my head and I’d jerk my head around just to let it know a bigger animal was still awake and pissed off.
Eventually I did get some sleep. At 5 am, the other people left (although first they let their alarm go off for like 5 minutes). I think they made French toast or something because I vaguely remember the sweet smell of toast, honey, and butter. It was a brisk morning, cold enough to see your breath, and getting out of our warm sleeping bags was tough. We didn’t really get up until like 8, and that as only after a battalion of Japanese tourists from some other part of the forest came through and peeked into the hut, surprised to find anyone so lazy as to be still be asleep at such a late hour.
When I finally went outside to piss there was this deer waiting for me outside. It was in my way and wouldn’t budge, and honestly, it seemed like it wanted to come in, it kept trying to stick its head in. I sort of pushed it aside and closed the door, and walked generally into the bushes. When I unzipped, I realized that the deer was right behind me watching me pee. And then when I finished, it started to lick my pee spot, I assume for salt. I went back inside the hut to eat a righteous breakfast and pack up. The whole time we heard some whining at the door, which I assumed was the deer again. At some point more curious Japanese popped their heads in. Anyway, we packed up and headed back.
By the time we got to Jomon Sugi again (like 8:45) there was already a mob of geriatric tourist brandishing a small fortune in camera equipment in the verdant morning light. They started the hike form below at 4 am or so, which meant they had probably been up since 3 am.
The hike back was nice, it was supposed to rain but it was all sunshine and sweetness. There was a lot of traffic on the paths; we saw a gnarly looking snake that some old Japanese men beat back into the bushes with a walking stick.
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