Karasawa cirque hike, Kamikochi (in the rain!)

In the rain strikes again, unfortunately. 

Our friends planned 2-night hiking and tent camping trip in Kamikochi / Chubu Sangaku National Park in Japan's Northern Alps to check out koyo / autumn leaves. We hadn't gotten a chance to use our newly purchased camping gear and tent during the Hakuba Yari onsen hiking in the rain overnight stay, so my husband and I were eager to get another chance. Little did we know how cold and rainy it would be (again!). 

Hiking trip overview:

Day 1

03:00 Leave Kanagawa 

06:45 Arrive at Sawando Parking Lot, leave by taxi

07:30 Arrive at Kamikochi Bus Terminal

07:50 Start hiking (upbeat pace)

10:15 Arrive at Yokoo Sanso, check in, set up tents

11:00 Resume hiking to Karasawa Cirque 

13:45 Arrive at Karasawa Hutte, eat ramen

14:30 Begin descent

16:45 Return to Yokoo Sanso, relax, tent camp

Day 2

11:00 pack up bags and tents

12:00 Depart Yokoo Sanso

14:30 Arrive at Kamikochi Bus Terminal, leave by taxi

The four of us set out early on a Thursday morning, just after 03:00am. 

My husband drove us straight through to Matsumoto where we had a brief stop at a convenience store before arriving at Sawando Parking Lot #3 at 06:45. Private vehicles are not allowed in Kamikochi, but there are a few (paid) parking areas like this one in Sawando that are directly connected with bus terminals. Parking fee was 700yen/day for this lot. 

We unloaded, stretched a little after the 3.5 hour drive and then readied up to walk over to the bus terminal. We used the restroom here (many of the ones at the national park area are 100yen fee toilets).

Then requested a taxi for the 4 of us to get to Kamikochi Bus Terminal which is about 25 minutes away. Direct buses are also available, but since there were 4 of us, the cost of a single taxi was more advantageous than the cost of 4 individual bus tickets which was nice because we didn't have to worry about the schedule. Taxi fees are flat rate - the specific one from Sawando to Kamikochi is 4600yen. Taxi driver very efficiently fit all 4 of our large packs into the trunk of his car. We took notes for when we would have to repack when we left lol. 

We arrived at Kamikochi just after 07:30, took some time to adjust, repack/check our bags, buy a small walking map and fill out our hiking itinerary. My understanding of this form is that they want to know where you intend to go and will aid in identifying someone if things go awry. The form is ideally filled out in Japanese. 

It was colder in Nagano compared to Kanagawa by like almost 10F, even only at the starting elevation which I wasn't expecting - I put on an extra layer I had packed thinking I would only need at night and even my gloves for the start.

We were a little bit behind on our ideal start time, but finally started hiking at 07:50. The initial 10km trek that we were planning for is typically budgeted at 3 hours that we wanted to cut by almost an hour, so we set a quick pace at the beginning and didn't stop for many photos. 

The path is relatively flat, wide and even for this part and wasn't too crowded on a Thursday morning. 

There was a sprinkling of small amount of rain and we did stop to put on our rain gear at around 09:15 in case it got really bad.

With just one quick bathroom and snack break in the middle, we somehow made it to our midday goal, Yokoo Sanso at 10:05, just 2 hours and 15 minutes after starting. The girls checked in at the mountain hut for tent camping (8000yen for 2 tents/4 people for 1 night) while the guys scoped out two spots to set up. 

There are two areas for tent camping at Yokoo Sanso. One is closer to the walking path and the bathrooms. The other is just next to Yokoo-Ohashi bridge. We chose the walking path side and got to work on the tents and lightening our backpack loads. 

(Mountain huts similar to the ones at Mt Fuji and Hakuba are available if you prefer to stay inside as well, but you will need to make a reservation in advance.)

Happier with a lot less weight in our packs and with the rain/drizzle paused at this point for an hour or so, we leave the tents at 11:00 and start the "real" hike to Karasawa Cirque by crossing Yokoo-Ohashi bridge as the elevation/steepness picks up with a lot of rocky terrain. 

We are still cautiously prepared for rain and cold, but I actually remove gloves, a fleece layer and rain cover for my pants an hour in during a stretching break. (Spoiler alert - a little bit of a mistake lol.) 

We reached Hondani Bridge just after 12:00 which has a cute little river-level walkway and then a taller suspension walkway. Lots of hikers were taking a break to eat here, but we didn't stop long because we were still trying to make it up and back before it got dark.

The rain started raining more steadily at about 12:20 and really didn't let up for a while. Our friends had umbrellas (previously just the husband hiked with one but now they each packed an umbrealla haha), but even despite thinking about getting one MULTIPLE times, I still hadn't considering a hiking essential. My husband and I had waterproof jackets and pants and raincovers for our packs, but you still get quite wet and cold when you're trudging in it for hours. 

We made it up to Karasawa Hutte at 13:45, just ahead of the pace for what we were intending which was great. Except it was still raining hard and cold as heck. There was even snow you could see on the mountain! 

For me, it wasn't a very relaxing rest stop because I could only keep warm if I was moving/hiking and my body was shivering so hard I could barely do anything requiring a lot of dexterity like using chopsticks or zipping my backpack. The view is often so beautiful from here but with all the grey clouds and the rain, it was a little less than ideal. And I was very grouchy from being so cold so I could barely hold my phone. 

Supposedly when the weather is good, there are 10x more tents and all outdoor tables are filled with campers and hikers! We stopped to each get a 1000yen bowl of ramen from the mountain hut to be able to sit at the covered tables and then started making our way back down while it was still raining at around 14:30.

I was quite miserable until we descended in elevation and I was able to warm up a bit from just moving around as well. Luckily, the weather cleared up for a bit as well! We were able to see patches of the fall colors against the green backdrop and grey clouds and stopped to take photos whenever we could because we knew the weather could change any minute.

Still drenched but at least having enjoyed a bit of the view we came for, we returned to Yokoo Sanso and our tents at 16:45. 

Everything seemed to have survived the rain without us OK, and we started to settle in and prepare for night time - changing into warmer, dry clothes and arranging all our belongings within the confines of the rainfly. 

We gathered together in our friends' tent which is a bit bigger (3 person tent vs ours which is 2 person) and ate dinner and played some Monopoly deal. 

It got dark pretty quickly, and we were exhausted and cold from 10 hours of hiking and waking up at 02:00am, so bedtime was around 19:00. I had a lot of trouble falling asleep because I couldn't get warm consistently. After hours had passed, I finally figured out I should tuck my whole body including my face and head into the sleeping bag and got some rest. 

In the early hours of the morning (before sunrise), I could hear that it had started to rain, but we felt safe and dry inside the tent, so we slept in as long as possible since we weren't planning on hiking/packing up while there was steady rain. 

When we did finally wake up, we saw from the weather report that it was supposed to rain literally all day through that night. We met up and discussed our 3 major options: 

1. move forward with intended hiking itinerary to continue hiking back through the flatter Tokusawa through Myojin areas that we sped through the previous day and re-set up tents (in the rain) at a different mountain hut for the second night, pack up and hike out of the park on the third day's morning; 

2. spend all day and the upcoming night in the tent to stay warm and dry while it continues to rain and then pack up on the third day when the rain stops to leave and return home; 

3. cut the camping short and pack up tents ASAP (in the rain), hike out of the national park completely (10km, likely 3 hours of hiking in the rain), catch a taxi to go back to the car and drive into Matsumoto city to relax and spend the night in a hotel and explore the city the next day before going home.

After being so cold and miserable the previous day, my husband and I knew we were not game for option 1. My husband was leaning towards option 2 since he was comfy in the tent and didn't want to bother doing anything in the rain. Unfortunately for him, our friends and I outnumbered him and opted for option 3. We made same-day reservations at a hotel near Matsumoto Castle for pretty cheap online (probably because it would be considered a last minute fill), and then prepared to leave. 

We had taken our time to make the decision, figure out what our potential itinerary would look like and carefully plan the pack up trying to minimize what got wet, so we didn't end up leaving Yokoo Sanso until 12:00 - still raining, but at least hopeful and heading towards a drier and warmer night for sure.

Admittedly, the 3 hour hike back to Kamikochi Bus Terminal did seem to take forever in the rain. Thankfully, I wasn't nearly as cold the day before, but we were all a bit tired (from yesterday's all day speed hike), had full backpacks of waterlogged stuff and just everything including us was wet. This is certainly where our friends' umbrellas easily came in handy for them because the course was even and didn't require walking sticks, and it was simple to hold the umbrella.

We reached the Kappa Bridge area at 14:15 and stopped to buy a quick snack since we hadn't had lunch. 

Once under the cover at the bus terminal, we removed some of our rain gear and then just happened to get the same taxi driver from the previous day to return to Sawando and our car. It's the same flat rate of 4600yen on the return trip. We were all relieved to get back into our car and out of the rain at 15:00. 

The hiking and camping didn't turn out quite how we had planned due to the rain, but we still had a good time and an experience to remember nonetheless. It was good to finally set up and use our camping stuff, and luckily we at least got to do the set up in dry weather which was relatively easy and fast and it survived the night pretty well (although we didn't sleep all that well bc we were cold and wet). 

The glimpses of beautiful scenery, especially the changing colors, were stunning in person. We did miss out on a few good chunks of it because we were doing a bit of speed hiking, the weather and cutting 1 whole day out of our hiking plans. I think I would attempt to do this hike again next year during this time - but definitely never again in the rain! 

Since we didn't spend the second night camping in Kamikochi but still had the day blocked out for this trip, we opted to stay in a hotel in Matsumoto city instead. We took real baths and slept in dry, comfortable beds, went shopping and did some site-seeing! Look for that in my October recap post at the end of the month :)