Day Eight: Bushwack, Temples 11 – 13
Weather: hot, started rainy, ended sunny.
Up and at ‘em at 6:30, found the usual combini bento and canned coffee, and headed off to Fujidera, temple 11. It is situated on the south side of the valley, tucked up against the bottom of the mountains, a small, and it seemed to me, quiet temple.
From here arises the trail up the mountain to Shosanji, a mountain-top, barrier temple. The walking trail, a 12.9 kilometre section, is reputed to be the toughest on the entire circuit. The road, route 242, hooks right to route 43, which then runs
westward, up and over a ridge, up a small valley and over it’s saddle, snaking around and up in a complex series of hairpins and switchbacks to the temple. It looked pretty straightforward on the map, but of course I got lost…
Just before this, however, I chanced upon a Japanese clearcut, the first one I've seen 'in production' so to speak. I have a lingering professional interest in such things; I believe this is called a hi-lead setup, where the logs are clinched to a cable and dragged, or suspended in the air, then pulled up to the landing by the motor, called a donkey, under the blue tarp. It is considered to be a practice that has a lowered impact on the forest soils, as there is relatively less dirt displaced and general ecosystem mayhem inflicted.
Riding route 242, rising west along the flank of the mountain, I took a small road switchbacking up and east. Later I realized it is not on my map, but at the time it seemed possible that this was route 43. This road, while still rising, quickly got smaller and smaller. This is usually a bad sign. Finally it deposited me in front of a standing stone, and a small abandoned house.
This house has been empty for some time as it is completely over grown with kudzu; the forest looks like a re-plantation of cedar trees, about twenty to thirty years old. This was done all over Japan in the seventies and eighties, a subsidised program to aid farmers. It resulted in a large scale shift in the number of cedar trees in Japan, a massive drop in the price of the wood as too much came into the market later, and, recently, a big upsurge in pollen allergies to all those trees. Oh dear.
Anyway, I came up the road with the small farm shed on it, and, feeling stubborn, or something, decided to continue down the road to the left.
Which quickly, within 100 meters, turned into a rutted, washed out rockpile useable only by serious four wheel drives. I could see it used to be a road. Noticing one of the small metal henro signs stuck to a tree, and feeling stubborn, or something, I continued, walking and pulling the bike, as I couldn’t possibly ride it over this terrain.
Long story short, I ended up dragging the bike uphill and back across the flank of the mountain on a path about a foot wide, cursing and swearing all the way. I found spent
shotgun shells at one point, leading me to think this might be someone’s hunting trail. Finally, around nine am, I dragged the bike up a seven meter incline and emerged at…A path. I mean a real, sort of flat path, with a, what is it, a jinja? The light began to dawn, and I pulled my maps out. Oh dear. The jinja’s name was Chodo-an, and I was about 3 kilometres up the mountain from temple 11! I was now standing on the walking pilgrim path to Shosanji.
I had a choice: I could walk my bike back to Fujidera, then start again around the mountain on route 242…or I could continue up the mountain on this path. Naturally, feeling stubborn, or something, I decided to go right.
The day quickly went from being bad to being horrendous. Occasional flat sections of
perhaps twenty or thirty meters were interspersed with rock strewn steep sections, where I was essentially lifting the bike up the path, and long upward sections where concrete, imitation logs had been placed in the path to create steps, forcing me to do the same. It was exhausting and slow, and the weight on the back of my bike from my tent, the drybox, and the rest of it made it difficult to lift. 
At one point, I was approaching a corner when a man bounded around it, running toward me with two henro sticks as outriggers. He stopped dead on seeing me, and burst out into a loud laugh. ‘A bike!’ he said. ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen one of those on this trail!’ I explained that I had gotten lost, which provoked another laugh. He asked if I was American. I explained I was from Canada, whereupon he wished me the best of luck and ran off. I continued. Up, and up and up…on this inhospitable, rocky path. I popped over a tight ridge and could hear voices. Stopping for a moment to catch my
breath, I could make out, 70 or 80 meters away and 30 meters down the ridge ahead, a group of Japanese hikers resting at a hut. When I got there I was greeted with frank astonishment and a little disbelief. You came up the trail?! You’re going to Shosanji?! When I explained that I was from Canada, nothing else (apparently) needed to be said.They were a group who liked to hike the trail recreationally. They wished me luck. This showed on my map as Ryusui-an (Dragon water place?).
And onward. The same, only more so. Sometime later I suddenly came to a set of impressive stone stairs set into the mountain. At the top of the stairs was a large statue of Kukai, a small shrine sitting under a huge sacred tree surrounded by a fence, two stone signs neither of which I could read and an abandoned priests’ house.
And the middle aged Japanese couple who had overtaken me and wished me well several hours before, eating lunch. This, I think, was Joren-an. I don’t know what its importance is, but someone had gone to a considerable amount of work, here in the middle of nowhere. I was quite impressed with the stairs.
Finally, at 2:30, I staggered out of the bush at Shosanji, half disbelieving that I was actually there. It had taken me five and a half hours to cover the 9.7 kilometers from Chodo-an to the temple. I felt knackered, but on reflection, somewhat self-satisfied that I had contributed to the local legend of the trail. Another first!
I ran into FriendlyBikeHenro under the big trees, and told him what I had done. He laughed, and said ‘a learning experience’. Truer words were never spoken. After praying, getting my Nokyocho signed, and drinking a well-earned coke, I headed off down the other side of the mountain, on a road and thankful for it, towards temple 13, Dainichiji.
An hour later, studying my maps where this road, rte. 438, met rte. 21, FriendlyBikeHenro rode up to me. We agreed to bike along together for a ways, and continued down along 21 along the Akuigawa River. His rear wheel now had no brakes and the rim was wobbling dangerously so at 4:45 we separated at a bridge where he could cross over and continue (slowly) down to around Shimoura or Ishii train station to try to find a bike shop and get his machine fixed. I had fifteen minutes to continue on rte. 21 to Dainichiji. Feeling stubborn, or something, I wished him luck, and hared off down the road as fast as my exhausted legs could push me.
I kept riding as fast as I could until, amazingly, closing on five pm, the temple appeared. I walked up to the priest’s office at 5:02, by my watch. She was in, smiled, and signed my book.
I took twenty minutes to pray and, after another glance at my maps, headed 10 kilometers downtown, to stay at a small business hotel called Eigetsu, just off the main drag, route 192.
This was a small place run by an aging couple, quiet, very nice, no other guests. It had an amazing bathroom upstairs, quite large, done up entirely in black, glossy tiles, with a deep red plush toilet seat cover and accents. I thought of Elvis, for some reason; the owner was quite proud of it.
When I asked, he said they didn’t have laundry facilities, but I could find some just down the street. After my combini bento dinner (I always made sure I was close by to a Lawsons or Circle K) I went out and combed the neighborhood for a Laundromat, and sure enough, eventually found a tiny, hole in the wall place, no one about. I threw my laundry in – blessings! - clean clothes – and found the end of a long but eventful day.
