A couple days prior, I was at a hiking (hippie/incense) festival in Yoyogi Park and talked to some random about hiking in Japan. None of the conversation mattered besides a couple mountains he told me about that were an hour and a half away. Luckily, I remembered where I wrote the destination down, looked it up, and got onto the subway.I didn't know what to expect, hopefully this obviously high Japanese hippie was right about there being some sort of hiking there.
I could tell I was getting closer to the mountains because with each stop, business casual filtered out as REI/Patagonia filtered in. Once I started trying to judge how hard this hike was going to be by who was there in the train with me, we pulled into Shiromaru Station. After I got off a connecting bus that took us to a lift that would take us up to the "starting point".
I came to sweat, to rid of that pork armpit. Why would I take the lift? I looked around for a path that seemed like it would go up to the "starting point" and began running.
I lasted about 5 minutes. Sweating profusely, cursing the ramen gods, staring at the lift that seemed float on up the mountain. I could only imagine the grandma's in there staring down and giggling at that hairy/shave headed/weirdly Japanese looking man who tried running up the mountain.
I trudged on. I walked on. With each step, I felt my pork fat clotted veins loosen up. I jogged on.
Once I got to the visitor center, the old man pointed me to a trail that he said ventured through 2 mountains and ended at the next train station. I stopped and drank some tea that I brought, ate a couple Green Tea Flavored Kit-Kats and began jogging.
It started out in as a normal paved trail through a small village, then quickly blossomed into a leave covered shoulder width trail that wound through the forests. It seemed untouched. As I continued to run through the mountains, I couldn't help but pretend I was in a Ghibli film. Thousands of giant toothpick like trees flew past me, fresh water creeks swam next to me, at one point I probably spread my arms like a bird. I had to. So cool.
At points, I would slow down to tip toe over a treacherous bridge, to feel the soil or just to enjoy the air. But, would make sure to get as much soaring time in as I could.
As I began to daydream about coming again but with my girlfriend to show her how amazing it was out here, it stopped.
The trail immediately turned into a road. My eyes adjusted from the dark forest light to a sun-bleached mars like setting. Rolling stump hills were surrounded by what seemed like water and wood treatment facilities. The fuck?
I guess this is where it ends. Not the trial. But everything. People will get so lost in this need for money that they will cut down forests they grew up in, pollute the water they have survived on and build over the forest covered hills they once fell in love with.
I may get a little dramatic sometimes, but I don't want my life to be defined by "I remember when..." stories.
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