Swallowed by white, this is a different sort of hike
The '80s-brown digital alarm clock crows. The window glows a gradually whitening aurora. I gracelessly roll off my futon like an anaesthetised horse, shuffle down the corridor in ill-fitting slippers, swaddled in a yukata, thwacking my forehead on a hefty low beam that's been thwacked by generations of yawning pilgrims.
Togakushi Pilgrims' Inn owner, Gokui-san, 78, is regaled in a black conical hat and powder-blue robe. The bespectacled, rally-driving Shinto priest thumps a taiko drum, chants metallically, executing the purification ceremony's esoteric formalities, by proxy launching my seven-day guided snowshoe tour of rural Nagano with Walk Japan.
This week, three metres of powder snow will coat Japan's Central Alps, a region Nobel Laureate Yasunari Kawabata labelled 'Snow Country'. Sky and earth become one profoundly white realm. Cloistered senses sharpen. Time compresses into exhilarating snippets, like a real-time slide-night.
Morning rituals develop. Devour teeny bowls of provincial scrumptiousness. Squeak into snug, snow-resistant synthetic layers. Tether snowshoes to hiking boots; affix gaiters. Follow Walk Japan's chirpy guides, Nick and Shiori, into the snowscape, shepherded by local enigmas like Hata-san.
An Italian restaurateur-cum-ski-slopes-groomer, Hata-san knows the most intriguing forest paths between Togakushi's five shrines; centuries-old Buddhist/Shinto structures where divinity dances on weathered woodwork, where 'treasure meets light', and where water-breathing dragons safeguard trees.
Hata-san's owl-strength eyes and wisdom breathe life into Nagano's backcountry. Simple scratches in mossy tree bark become claw-marks of now-hibernating Asian black bears. He occasionally hears them thud to the forest floor from their precarious tree-top perches in warmer months, fixated on nothing but scoffing acorns. Criss-crossing indents in the snow become a fox pursuing her bunny-rabbit feast. My own snowshoe-track trajectory reminds Hata-san of the common raccoon dog's.
I cagily crunch across Lake Kagami-ike, trout swimming under 50 frozen centimetres. Sapphire sky perforates clouds briefly, uncloaking formidable Togakushi Range, home to cave-dwelling monks, life-extinguishing mountain-climbing routes and, reportedly, Momiji – a murderous female demon exiled from Kyoto.
A stupendous avenue of 400-year-old, sky-tickling cedars preludes Togakushi's Okusha shrine. Instagramming day-trippers and pilgrims alike approach this 'power spot' reverently: toss a coin, bow twice, clap twice, pray, bow again.
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