Mount Ontake 御嶽山

Mount Ontake is the second highest volcano in Japan (after Fuji), at 3,067m.

Ontake is famous for its recent eruption in 2014, killing 63 people on the mountain, with 5 bodies still missing to this day. “The timing of the eruption contributed greatly to the heavy death toll: near midday, when many hikers were near the summit, and during a weekend of clear weather conditions”.

With no signs of the volcano possibly erupting, there were no warnings for hikers sumitting the mountain on midday.

Ontake’s eruption wasn’t the movement of magma: it was something called a phreatic explosion, which involves steam. And steam blasts are very difficult to foresee. These types of explosions — sometimes called hydrothermal explosions — occur when the heat balance changes in a shallow part of a volcano.

Now 9 years since the eruption, the entry ban on the popular trail of Ontake from Otaki village has been lifted in July 2023. The climbing season, however, is scheduled to close up on October 11st. It was November when we hiked Ontake, meaning we were only able to reach the 9th station, at 2933m high.

So close to reaching 3000m! (I have still yet to reach my 3000s).

The exciting part of today’s climb were all the wild blueberries we found for foraging. Shrivelled up under the sun, the inside tasted like jam and we (especially the foraging Queen Jess) nibbled on them as breakfast as we ascended up.

Jess likes to hike in a fasted state (and I try my best to as well but at times breakfast seems tempting before a hard climb!), and fascinatingly the energy level feels indifferent as to if you had food in your stomach. It proves most of us have enough stored fat in our bodies to use as energy without any food, even during a hard mountain climb.

We reached the 9th station, where two police officers were guarding the banned trail onwards to the summit. They looked like normal hikers, but the younger (& more enthusiastic one) flashed his badge as soon as we inquired them. They were lovely and we chatted with them for awhile. They started hiking at 6am before anyone else to stop any attempts to summit (with a huge fine if you do). No, they did not do this everyday. Just on sunny weekends they said.

How awesome of a job though!

Just before reaching the bottom, I had my first squirrel sighting in Japan since I’ve moved here. Just this morning, I also saw a wild monkey from the car, perched on a white fence with its bright red face, chilling next to the road.

Weather was good, we descended safely without any eruption, we didn’t die from foraging, two cute animal sighting, today was a good day!