Hiking the Arakawa trail to Jomon Sugi

Okanyi woke me up a little after 4 am and made sure I was moving quickly. I only had fifteen minutes to wake up, eat breakfast and pack my bag if my surprise was going to work.

I had visions of climbing the 14er, Mt Yale in my head. Why did I stay up drinking shochu until midnight the night before I was to go on an 8 hour hike? I had learned this lesson before, painfully.

My surprise was to meet two Japanese ladies I had met a couple days before on the Shiratani trail. They had given me a ride back to the minshuku at the end of the day. I didn't quite understand the whole plan, but Okanyi and Hide had planned the whole thing. They would drive me to the bus stop. Ordered me a bento box for lunch. Loaned me a day pack. I knew I had to be at the bus stop at 5 am to meet Atsuko and Hiromi. I knew I had to do something special with the buses but I didn't understand what. I knew it was 8 hours of hiking and a couple hours of bus riding. The goal was to reach Jomon Sugi, a 5 meter behemoth of a Japanese cedar (actually a conifer) estimated to be 2000-7000 years old. That was about the extent of what I knew. Lets be honest, I was clueless.

I was worried that 900 mL wouldn't be enough water for 8 hours. I was worried that my sandals weren't enough for an 8 hour hike. Everyone else looked like they were camping for a week - boots, gaiters, trekking poles. And me, the only white guy on the island, and I show up in shorts and sandals... I was worried that Atsuko and Hiromi didn't really want to spend the day hiking with me.

Turns out the road to the trailhead had been washed out by a landslide and I had to hike around the bad spot and catch another bus. What was I getting myself into...

The trail to Jomon Sugi is two parts. The first section follows an old set of railroad tracks up a slight grade. Its really easy hiking. Everyone drinks the water in the streams, we will see how that works out for me... Everything is green and covered in moss. We hiked to the sound of Atsuko humming Star Wars. I learned the Japanese words for everything within sight, they got to practice English. We saw Yakushima deer; we saw Yakushima monkeys. Moss. Waterfalls. Moss. Bridges. Moss.

The second part of the hike is more like an adventure course than a trail. There are boulders to climb. Stumps to go under (little sugi are still 1-2 meter in diameter). Ropes to pull yourself up. Ladders to climb. Stairs to go down. Its a lot steeper and everything is damp and slippery.

At about the midpoint there is an enormous stump 10 meters in diameter, named Wilson`s stump. with a little shrine inside. Its big enough 30 people can fit inside.

And finally we made it to Jomon Sugi! 4 hours later, in sandals without socks, I made it. What a hike! and we were lucky it didn't rain once.

This tree is older than the entire history of the human race. Ponder that for a moment. To be in the presence of something living that was alive before humans started recording history. Wow.

Thanks go to Atsuko and Hiromi for a lovely day of hiking, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thanks go to Okanyi and Hide for orchestrating the whole thing and taking care of the details a gaijin didn't even understand.