As TNFC 2016 came to a close, it was time for the yearly roctrip. I had a total of 4days before I had to leave and head back to Tokyo to do some touristy stuff with Sue Ann.
Well, the first day was pretty simple. Everyone needed a break from the rigors of competition and we just took an easy day following Yuji and Eddie around. We visited a shrine to pray for good weather as it has been raining for the whole day and also went for a long hot spring session to relax.
Yuji invited us to his place to have a look and also to have some playtime with chocolate!
Okutama
We had a 2 hour(i think) drive to okutama where Nobu hosted us for the week. We stayed in a very traditional Japanese house with minimal technology. Even the toilet was recently upgraded.
Okutama was actually a climbing area established in the late 1970s(?). After which it was closed of by the land owner due to his unhappiness of climbers dirtying the land and the area. I’m not sure how it worked, but we had some special permission to access the area. Yuji and Nobu have dedicated quite a bit of time to redevelop the area, cleaning and rebolting almost all the routes.
From where we stayed, we can decide if we wanted to boulder or lead, and either discipline would only take 10–15mins walk to either crag. A main road would split into 2 where if we headed left and down, we could go bouldering by the riverside and heading right and up the trail would bring us to the sport climbing crag.
Climbing style in Okutama, I feel is generally more powerful. With big holds and big moves. I personally feel it’s more to our style in Singapore. Both lead routes and boulder problems are similar in style and even the easy problems/routes can be quite powerful.
Mizugaki
Mizugaki is about another 2 hours drive away from Okutama and it is a pretty well established area with many high quality Boulder problems.
I’m not sure about the rest of them, but I felt that the problems in Mizugaki are under graded and the one that we tried are quite hard for the given grades? But then again, it all boils down to climbing style and our own strengths and weaknesses.
Mizugaki in general is climbing on really really sharp crimps and with terrible footholds. Terrible could be a understatement thou.
If my memory serves me right, I think no one topped any problem on the first day at Mizugaki other than Adam Ondra, Sachi Anma, and Chon Jongwon with a one day triple ascent of Asagimadara, V15.
The consolation for me was seeing how beautiful and serene a place like Mizugaki is. Experiencing it in winter made it look more peaceful and incredible.
That pretty much sums up my 3/4 days of the roctrip. Plans to head back to Okutama/Mizugaki are brewing at the back of my head and I honestly cannot wait to be back in Japan!
