AOMORI (Japan), Sept 27 — Travel can be anti-climatic sometimes.
You fly for hours, decipher bus and train timetables in a foreign tongue, navigate roads where everyone seems to be driving on the wrong side of the road (i.e. the opposite of whichever side you are accustomed to), get squashed in a heaving sea of unwashed bodies (i.e. other tourists), to finally reach your destination — that acclaimed landmark plastered on overpriced postcards — only to find it dearly lacking.
Perhaps such a result ought to be foreseen when you put too high a hope on your destination of choice. What could live up to your expectations?
But what if there was no destination? What if the “destination” is the very journey itself?
We ponder this as we get off our JR Bus. It had taken us the better part of two hours from Aomori Station to the Yakeyama bus stop.
Japan’s Aomori Prefecture is famed for its natural wonders and one of its best kept secrets is the secluded Oirase Gorge.
You can only get here by bus, as we did, or by driving. No trains or flights, unusual for a country with high-speed shinkansen railways.
All the better to preserve Oirase Gorge’s pristine scenery. Also known as Bafuku Kaido or the Great Waterfall Road, the gorge is peppered — signposted, if you will — with numerous waterfalls along the way.
We begin our hike from Yakeyama, along the entire length of the mountain stream that winds its way through Oirase Gorge, before finishing our journey at Nenokuchi on the northern shore of Lake Towada.
Our walk across one of the most beautiful river valleys in Japan will cover roughly 14 kilometres.
There are various bus stops along the route and those eager to save time will hop on and off buses, snapping pictures quickly before moving on to their next target.
They chase “destinations” and that’s one approach, surely, though they run out of things to photograph swiftly enough.
Why not go slower? Keigetsu Omachi, a Meiji-era writer, had once spoken of the stream’s splendour.
With the autumnal foliage — yellow gold and fiery red — above and the green mossy rocks, we witness a riot of colours and we can’t help but agree. Go slow. Experience more.
After a short break at Ishikedo, the only rest house along the entire stretch of the Oirase Gorge, where we could get light meals such as soba and ramen, we encounter the violent Ashuranonagare Current.
The waters flow furiously beneath the coppery shade of the trees, reminding us of its namesake, Ashura the Buddhist deity of great force.
The rapids can be icy cold, even in summer, and we watch our step. The landscape is dynamic, alive, but even the gentlest elements can be deadly for the foolhardy.
Every step of our hike, the cycle of life surrounds us: from budding berries to dead leaves falling onto the ground.
Some visitors try to capture the verdant forest and the gushing streams on canvas. They paint the triple trunk of Morinokami (the God of the Forest), a 400-year-old giant beech split into three by a woodcutter aeons ago, and they paint the golden leaves of Horyo no Icho, the 1,100-year-old ginkgo tree planted by the mythic Nansonobo.
They could paint for days and weeks, and they could paint season after season, and always discover something new to immortalise in oil and acrylic, with watercolour and with ink. The beauty of Oirase Gorge is ever-changing.
One can only pray that it is also everlasting.
From waterfalls and rapids to rock formations and gentle brooks, nothing stays stagnant along the hike.
Names tell a story — Soryu (Two Dragon Waterfall), Tomoshiraga (Happy Marriage Waterfall), Kudan (Nine Stairs Waterfall), Shiraito (White String Waterfall), Shirakinu (White Silk Waterfall), Tamadare (Bead Curtain Waterfall) and Shimai (Sister Waterfall) — perhaps of a more innocent time.
Not everything is bright and light, however. The Tenguiwa is a rock named after a Japanese goblin, the tengu, and we scare ourselves with a local legend of a witch who lived here, beguiling unsuspecting victims with her glamour. She would steal their hearts and then their goods and — for the unluckiest ones – their lives.
We stayed clear of the larger rocks after that, those that looked as though they could hide a cavern or a coven of witches.
Sometimes we walk along the road — the streams run alongside it most of the way – and sometimes we step deeper and deeper into the forest. We never stray too far from the path but this is a nature ramble, after all, and we let our feet lead the way.
If there is anything resembling a landmark — a true destination — then the magnificent Choshi Otaki Waterfall that awaits us near the end of our 14-kilometre hike has to be it.
There are other waterfalls, of course, larger ones and higher ones. A little further is the Goryo Falls, the last one, before we would arrive at Nenokuchi on the banks of Lake Towada.
But the steady pace of our walk, the slow reveal after at least half a dozen other waterfalls, make Choshi Otaki a thunderous exclamation.
We stand in silent ovation, applauding with our senses as we take it all in. The journey, we realise, is the destination, if we allow it to be.
Getting to Oirase Gorge
Oirase Gorge is two-hour bus ride from JR Aomori Station to the Yakeyama bus stop or 50 minutes from JR Hachihohe Station to the Nenokuchi bus stop. Between Yakeyama and Nenokuchi, there are a total of eight bus stops. The Yakeyama-Nenokuchi hike is 14 kilometres and takes 4-5 hours; the shorter Ishikedo-Nenokuchi hike is about 9 kilometres and takes 3-4 hours.
