One Life Japan

“Real life” has finally caught up to us. We have had to spend these past two days indoors despite the long awaited sunshine. Tomoe has been working on a newsletter to be shared with past customers and the village people to let them know what is going on this past year, and I have been sitting behind the desk working on a major revisions of the One Life Japan website. Now that we have a better idea of how next year will turn out, and how we can push it in the direction we want to take it, the old website (which has not even been updated since before the summer) will not work.

To help us remember what it is like to be outside, I decided to post these photos of Tomoe enjoying a rest at the top of Mt. Naeba after waking up early to watch the sunrise.

So while we were in the hut at the top of Mt. Naeba, we overheard a “guide” telling an elderly client that she has to go down alone because she can’t keep up with the rest of the group. It is one thing to expect a woman of her age who voluntarly climbed the mountain - and she was a sure-footed hiker- to go down alone, but the fact that he was being paid to ensure her safety (what other reason would a guide be needed when there are clearly marked trails and maps?)

The guide was leading a group of about fifteen people on a trip that required 12 hour hiking days. That is fine for me and Tomoe to hike alone, but finding two or three other people who will agree to that is hard enough. I have no idea how they found fifteen people in their golden years who knew about the distances and agreed to go - and I really have no idea how they felt they can ensure safety with only one guide! As was obvious from the conversation we overheard the first night of their three day hike, if someone can’t handle the hard hike, or can’t keep up, there is no contingency plan. The guide basically just yelled at her and told her to go down alone

We happened to be going down the same trail the next day, so we asked her to join us. Not wanting to cause us trouble, she insisted we go ahead and let her go down alone, but the trail from the top of Naeba is quite steep in places, and even younguns like Tomoe or I could conceivably slip, fall, and break a leg. Tomoe went ahead with our clients, and I stayed back within view of her - pretending that I was just a slow hiker - to make sure that if she did get injured, at least someone would know.

In the end, I probably fell more times on trail than she did, due to her extremely careful hiking style. I met her several times on the trail and was worried about freaking her out by following her, but she seemed to have forgotten who I was. every time I met her she asked where I was from and forgot that we had stayed in the hut and began hiking together at the same time earlier that morning.

Although it is probably lost in my rambling, the thing that I am pissed off about is that that “guide” would have sent her down alone (he did not know that we would be hiking the same trail). On the way up we passed a total of four people early on. If something had happened and she was laying injured on the trail, there would be little chance that anyone would find her. What the hell was that “guide” for?!?!