Day 69: The beginning of the end
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the last leg of my journey across Japan on foot, through the Fuji Hakone Izu national park and down towards Tokyo. As (bad) luck would have it that last leg threatens to start with a day where I have to go to a backup plan and take a zero. This would not be an ideal way to start towards the finish.
What's going on? Well, let me give you a bit of backstory to bring you up to speed.
For the last few days I have been battling a nasty stomach bug, the undignified details of which shall not be recorded here. I'm not sure if it's something I ate, or signs of a different illness, but it has left me very limited in my activities and shaken my faith in being kilometers away from the facilities.
When I left Fuji yesterday, I was extremely unsure about how to approach covering the distance to my next stop in Mashima. The route was fairly urban, but could still leave me significantly distances from a public toilet, which made me nervous.
I sat in the lobby of my hostel in Fuji, studying the route, seeing if I could stitch together a path that would hop me from convenience store to convenience store without adding too much extra distance, but it was not looking likely.
Knowing that my route would be shadowed by the train, I decided that I would gear up, start out and if I began having serious doubts, I could always bail and take the train. As almost every train station also has a public washroom, this seemed like a reasonable safety net. And, realistically, I was carrying a change of clothes should things go seriously badly.
Grabbing my pack, I loaded it on to my back, thanked my hostel owner for his hospitality with a firm handshake and made for the door. Like so many doors here it was a sliding door, which make navigating with a large pack a lot easier than having to dodge the swing line of a hinged door.
I stepped out into the sunny day, and twisted back to my left to slide the door shut again. It was in this twisting action that fate stepped in, taking the form of intense stabbing pains at the top of my left leg where it meets the hip.
My guess is that my muscles were still cold, and the weight of the pack and odd angle of the twist pulled something. All I knew in that moment was that it was excruciating to even bear weight on my left leg.
I limped down the street, and the intensity of the pain dulled a bit, allowing me to bear weight a little easier, but also making the choice about my day regardless of my desires. With the Fuji train station across the street, I slowly and wincingly climbed the stairs to the overpass and made my way to the train, resigned to take a zero on the for two unshakeable reasons.
Today, after as much rest and a couple of soaks in the onsen, my leg is feeling ok. However my confidence in it is still shaky, as the injury was suffered so easily that I am wary that it could happen again without warning.
Not to mention my guts still hate me.
So tomorrow I have some decisions to make when I wake up.
Choice #1:
Set out on the planned route, which both leaves the city behind and also puts my doing a long climb uphill for ~800m of vertical ascent, only to turn and head back down to the SE, descending ~700m vertically.
This route has two risks: my guts melting out of me somewhere on the side of the mountain, and my leg deciding it's not healed up and I'm stuck limping for endless hours.
Choice #2:
Take the train around the south end of the park, allowing me to reach my lodging for the night with only 4-5km walking.
This would minimize risk, but would also be a minor defeat in terms of morale. I don't like the idea of having to skip two sections like this.
...
Now you may be asking an obvious question: Why the hell aren't you just staying in the park? Why are you climbing all the way up only to climb down again?
Well, my original plan had me doing that, climbing into the park ONCE and staying there to hike for a few days. However tomorrow is a Saturday, and Saturdays are incredibly hard to book lodging for without spending an arm and a leg.
Not wanting to spend a couple hundred dollars for one night led me to finding an affordable Ryokan on the southern foot of the park. However the only feasible route on foot has me going all the way up, then nearly all the way back down again. Not to mention that I would wake up early and retrace my steps back up those ~700m decent from the previous night.
At this point the choice isn't something I can make now. I will have to wait to see how I feel in the morning and play it by ear.
It's comforting to know I have an accessible and affordable backup plan to get me to my next stop, and I'm not going to stress about anything beyond that, as it is beyond my control.
What I can do is anticipate both choices and understand what logistics need to be arranged in either case. I will have to carry all my food for the day, as the route is mountainous and devoid of resupply. I also need to take into account the sunsetting at 4:47pm tomorrow, and the route being approximately 6 walking hours (not factoring in breaks. This means a very early start to give me lots of room for breaks, and probably not always keeping pace on the incline section.
For now I am resting in my room, happy to have a warm, comfortable place to relax. In a few hours I will go for "midnight noodles", fresh ramen served free at the Dormy Inn (strangely served between 9:30-11pm, and not at midnight as the name would suggest). After that I will take one more soak in the onsen and try to sleep early.
I hope that all will be right with my little world in the morning and I can set of up into the hills for my next adventure. But no matter what, tomorrow is the beginning of the last steps towards Tokyo and the end of this long journey.
What's going on? Well, let me give you a bit of backstory to bring you up to speed.
For the last few days I have been battling a nasty stomach bug, the undignified details of which shall not be recorded here. I'm not sure if it's something I ate, or signs of a different illness, but it has left me very limited in my activities and shaken my faith in being kilometers away from the facilities.
When I left Fuji yesterday, I was extremely unsure about how to approach covering the distance to my next stop in Mashima. The route was fairly urban, but could still leave me significantly distances from a public toilet, which made me nervous.
I sat in the lobby of my hostel in Fuji, studying the route, seeing if I could stitch together a path that would hop me from convenience store to convenience store without adding too much extra distance, but it was not looking likely.
Knowing that my route would be shadowed by the train, I decided that I would gear up, start out and if I began having serious doubts, I could always bail and take the train. As almost every train station also has a public washroom, this seemed like a reasonable safety net. And, realistically, I was carrying a change of clothes should things go seriously badly.
Grabbing my pack, I loaded it on to my back, thanked my hostel owner for his hospitality with a firm handshake and made for the door. Like so many doors here it was a sliding door, which make navigating with a large pack a lot easier than having to dodge the swing line of a hinged door.
I stepped out into the sunny day, and twisted back to my left to slide the door shut again. It was in this twisting action that fate stepped in, taking the form of intense stabbing pains at the top of my left leg where it meets the hip.
My guess is that my muscles were still cold, and the weight of the pack and odd angle of the twist pulled something. All I knew in that moment was that it was excruciating to even bear weight on my left leg.
I limped down the street, and the intensity of the pain dulled a bit, allowing me to bear weight a little easier, but also making the choice about my day regardless of my desires. With the Fuji train station across the street, I slowly and wincingly climbed the stairs to the overpass and made my way to the train, resigned to take a zero on the for two unshakeable reasons.
Today, after as much rest and a couple of soaks in the onsen, my leg is feeling ok. However my confidence in it is still shaky, as the injury was suffered so easily that I am wary that it could happen again without warning.
Not to mention my guts still hate me.
So tomorrow I have some decisions to make when I wake up.
Choice #1:
Set out on the planned route, which both leaves the city behind and also puts my doing a long climb uphill for ~800m of vertical ascent, only to turn and head back down to the SE, descending ~700m vertically.
It's a lot of vertical changes for my less than athletic frame.
This route has two risks: my guts melting out of me somewhere on the side of the mountain, and my leg deciding it's not healed up and I'm stuck limping for endless hours.
Choice #2:
Take the train around the south end of the park, allowing me to reach my lodging for the night with only 4-5km walking.
This would minimize risk, but would also be a minor defeat in terms of morale. I don't like the idea of having to skip two sections like this.
...
Now you may be asking an obvious question: Why the hell aren't you just staying in the park? Why are you climbing all the way up only to climb down again?
Well, my original plan had me doing that, climbing into the park ONCE and staying there to hike for a few days. However tomorrow is a Saturday, and Saturdays are incredibly hard to book lodging for without spending an arm and a leg.
Not wanting to spend a couple hundred dollars for one night led me to finding an affordable Ryokan on the southern foot of the park. However the only feasible route on foot has me going all the way up, then nearly all the way back down again. Not to mention that I would wake up early and retrace my steps back up those ~700m decent from the previous night.
At this point the choice isn't something I can make now. I will have to wait to see how I feel in the morning and play it by ear.
It's comforting to know I have an accessible and affordable backup plan to get me to my next stop, and I'm not going to stress about anything beyond that, as it is beyond my control.
What I can do is anticipate both choices and understand what logistics need to be arranged in either case. I will have to carry all my food for the day, as the route is mountainous and devoid of resupply. I also need to take into account the sunsetting at 4:47pm tomorrow, and the route being approximately 6 walking hours (not factoring in breaks. This means a very early start to give me lots of room for breaks, and probably not always keeping pace on the incline section.
For now I am resting in my room, happy to have a warm, comfortable place to relax. In a few hours I will go for "midnight noodles", fresh ramen served free at the Dormy Inn (strangely served between 9:30-11pm, and not at midnight as the name would suggest). After that I will take one more soak in the onsen and try to sleep early.
I hope that all will be right with my little world in the morning and I can set of up into the hills for my next adventure. But no matter what, tomorrow is the beginning of the last steps towards Tokyo and the end of this long journey.
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