Mount Tanigawa (Tanigawadake) 谷川岳

Mount Tanigawa is a rugged mountain that borders the prefectures Gunma and Niigata. In fact, it is called “The Mountain of the Evil” as over 800 people have died on this mountain from 1931 to 2014. That is over twice the number of deaths in Everest! The mountain is 1977 meters in elevation – it is not the highest peak in Japan, but the most deadly. The casualties are actually mostly due to rock climbers. This mountain has a cliff famous in the rock climbing realm called “Ichinokura-Sawa (一ノ倉沢)”. While mountaineering was already popular by the 1930s, the gear was still inadequate, causing many deaths on this mountain. It is totally safe for hikers now, with many chains.

I hiked the non-main route, as usual, Nishiguroone Trailhead, instead of taking the rope way. We walked past a few locals by the trail entrance. They told us to take care as the wind has picked up for today. I also like enquiring about bears and mamushi to the locals so I know how cautious I should be. Oh heaps, They said. Not mamushi but bears. “They’re definitely around”. 「おるよ、ぜんぜんおるよ」. Lovely!

This route was extremely steep and exposed! I hiked with Mitchell, an Australian traveller I met during my hike up Mount Mizugaki.

We were a little too eager to start hiking again after typhoon #7 hit Japan. It was cloudy in the morning, but we were soon hiking in the middle of white mist with a strong gust knocking us off balance every now and then. We arrived at the hut by the summit and contemplated our plans to continue on or not. The hut owner (all huts are privately-owned in Japan so there is an owner around most of the time), advised us to hike back down as there is now a new wind coming from a different direction, worsening in the afternoon. He made it sound like we were going to die if we continued onwards. Luckily we had reception and checked the weather – it didn’t look bad, in fact, tomorrow looked pretty awesome. We Japanese, are overcautious beings by nature.

The summit! Translated to “The Ear of Toma”. I’ve asked around other hikers what this means and no one had seemed to know exactly what Toma is. Further on from here is another little peak called Okinomimi, “The ear of Oki”. Unsure of what Oki is either. Unfortunately, we saw no views on this day.

From afar, the two peaks of the mountains do resemble ears.

We decided to continue onwards, staying at one of the emergency huts. The wet rocks were extremely hard to scrabble down, even with chains! This meant our pace was a lot slower than we anticipated.

Wet and soggy – but this was a much better day than staying another night in the bustling city of Tokyo. I had never been to Tokyo and this Obon holiday was my first time visiting the biggest city in the world. It was a good cultural experience, I mostly saw foreigners walking down the streets. The feel of the city was different to Osaka, mainly the streets felt cleaner back home. But the busy city life is not my cup of tea. I craved the quiet. I caught the train out to Gunma as soon as the typhoon had passed.

By the afternoon, the rain had stopped and the wind had picked up. Every now and then a strong blow would lift up the mist and there opened a view for us to see for three seconds. I didn’t think something as little as this would get us so excited, but it indicated that the weather was getting better. We were amped.

So this is what our surrounding looked like!

We eventually arrived at the emergency hut. We weren’t even close to the one we had initially planned to reach. Initially, we planned to hike the horse-shoe traverse in two days. We hadn’t taken into account the rain and the slippery rocks. We changed our course to walking back out to the same bus stop the next day.

This hut was awesome! Newly built, with even slippers for you to use. The water source was a 2-minute walk down the cliff, and it seemed to have been dry for the last week as we only had a slow trickling flow through some grass. Nonetheless, we managed to fill up all our bottles after some waiting. Every now and then, we’d see a view for a second or two from the hut. I was excited for tomorrow. The temperature had dropped in the evening and it was rather chilly, a fresh contrast to the sweaty days on lower ground.

Next day

I naturally woke up from sunlight at 5am. I stepped outside the hut and there she wasss – a beautiful view in the crisp air. A blue clear sky without a cloud in sight!

What a stunning view from a hut too!

We started walking at 7 a.m, back onto the ridgeline we came from yesterday. But this time we were able to see around us!

I read about the Gunma Prefectural Border Ridgeline Trail yesterday on the board beside the first hut. It said it was the longest ridgeline trail in Japan. Reading this, I quickly added it to my to-hike list. However, trying to search for anything about this trail online seems impossible. There are no English articles on it, and when I search what is the longest ridgeline trail in Japan, many different answers pop up in the search engine. Perhaps it’s not well-known, or there is no information in English.

me and my huge pack

The view was stunning. I was glad to have continued on yesterday. I didn’t think I’d come all the way to Gunma/Niigata for my Obon holiday but I was so pleased that I had.

We had reached the two peaks of ears again and we started seeing the day-hikers from here onwards. We descended down via a different route than yesterday – the main route. My initial plan was to descend all the way down without using the ropeway. However, halfway down the bottom, the heat and the humidity had gotten intolerable. Obon holidays are in the middle of August – at the height of a humid Japanese summer. Gunma prefecture due to its location in the middle of Japan also traps heat, creating a little sauna-like situation.

There were countless amount of hikers climbing up on this day. I had underestimated this main route- even with the use of a ropeway, it still looked like an impressive ascent. And the main age group of hikers in Japan is on the older scale too – 50+!

The ropeway was a good idea. I was sweating like crazy from the heat and I just wanted to take a shower asap.

Tanigawa, “the mountain of the evil” was absolutely beautiful, and the ridgeline was mesmerizing. We arrived back safely and caught the bus right on time. No statistic added to the fatality of this evil mountain from us! I would love to come back here to complete the full horse-shoe route one day.