Dave and Nick's autumn overnight hike in Nagano

Nick and I climbed Utsugi-dake in Nagano prefecture on October 27-28 during NEO’s week off.

This was one of the hardest hikes I have done. It was 2264 meters up and down over two days, a distance of 20.4 km, and we stayed overnight in an unmanned unheated hut that was around -10 degrees C with strong wind all night. My hiking app has a rating system for hikes, most that I do are difficulty 18-20, but this was rated at 52! (Mt. Fuji is rated at 41)

On Sunday night we stayed at our friend’s cabin about an hour away from the start of the hike. We cooked up some super thick steaks and we had a good time catching up with everybody.

The first half of the hike had a lot of vertical ascent on well maintained trails.

After about halfway up, the trail changed into a very rocky ridge trail with warning signs about being careful not to fall and die.

We got a bit behind the intended pace and needed to hike the last 90 minutes with our headlamps on the pitch black rocky trail.

We finally reached the hut and quickly changed into dry clothes and set up our sleeping mats and sleeping bags because it was freezing cold once we stopped hiking uphill. We had originally wanted to stay in manned hut, but they all closed for the season earlier in October.

Even after eating some warm food it was hard to stay warm because the wind was blasting the hut all night. We used (kairo) hand warmers in our pockets and and had to wedge some hiking sticks in the door to keep it from rattling. The reward for leaving the hut to use the toilet in the middle of the night was the most amazing starscape I have ever seen. The Milky Way was clearly visible, but it was just too freezing to think about taking pictures.

Day one: 7 hours hiking, 1736 m (5700 ft) ascent

The next morning we woke up around 6:30, which is actually a late start by Japanese mountain standards. The hut was in a shallow valley about an hour from the peak of Utsugi-dake.

We ate a quick breakfast and hiked up to the peak with no backpacks, leaving almost everything at the hut.

The views from the peak were amazing. A few clouds were just starting to come up the mountain, so unfortunately we were blocked from seeing Mt. Fuji, but we could see many other peaks in the Japan Alps. There was one other hiker up there and we were able to get a nice group photo at the peak.

Almost an hour back down to the hut, we gathered up our belongings and started the long long descent. We safely passed the narrow ridge zone that was almost all rock and tree root scrambles with a lot of harrowing wooden ladders and chains down rock faces.

About halfway down we took a different trail than we had come up. The trail stared wonderfully, wide paths with nary a rock nor boulder in sight. However, it quickly turned into a 45 degree muddy slope covered with huge wet leaves that prevented almost any easy traction. Every step was using thigh muscles to stop slipping and my upper legs quickly turned to quivering jelly.

I was heavily relying on my sticks and upper body strength by the time we reached the bottom, as my legs had had it. It started to get dark and we once again had to use our headlamps to see in the dense forest canopy.

The final kilometer or two was on asphalt roads back to our parking area and it was fantastic to not have to climb down boulders and tangled tree roots or slide sideways down slippery hills anymore.

Day two: 8 hours hiking, 526m (1725 ft) ascent, 2122m (6963 ft) descent

We drove 2 hours back to Nagoya, got cleaned up and had a pizza party to celebrate being alive.