Hiking in Honshu, Japan
Trekking through bamboo forests, around glorious lakes – accompanied by tinkling ‘bear bells’ – Japan is one of our favourite walking spots. Here’s how to do it like the locals
Halfway to northern Honshu, a hiker stepped onto the bullet train with a tinkle. We looked up from our bento boxes (sashimi heaped high with shavings of fresh ginger and peppery green wasabi) and watched him with interest: this was our first Japanese hiker, equipped – we’d heard about this – with a little bell on his pack for scaring bears.
The hiker on the train was wearing the bell just in case. We later found that everybody was wearing everything ‘just in case’: GoreTex jackets and trousers, polar fleeces, the sort of boots you climb Everest in – all for a stroll along a river or to see a charming waterfall. This (very Japanese) longing for control over the unpredictable means that not only are casual hikers startlingly over-equipped, but rivers are sluiced or dammed, waterfalls are buttressed (for a perfectly centred torrent) and walking paths are cemented or cindered.
But you know what? There are still areas of such exquisite natural and man-made beauty that you never forget them. We were heading for one: Towada-Hachimantai, one of the oldest national parks in Japan, which has two separate sections – 100km apart – each with a volcanic lake ringed by mountains, forests and steaming springs.
It was late in the year – great for leaves but lousy for reliable information on mountain huts or for turning up at onsen (hot springs) unannounced – so we decided to do day hikes rather than camp, and hire a car rather than risk the out-of-season bus services.
