Mt. Norikura 乗鞍岳 is one of the most recognizable mountains in the Northern Alps of central Japan. Living in Takayama, every day I see the distinct saddle shape of its peaks, which is where its name comes from. I'm always viewing the mountain from the west, though. This past weekend, there was a Photo Rogaining event held on its east side, at Norikura Kougen 乗鞍高原, in Nagano prefecture.
There's a single narrow road that connects Takayama to Matsumoto in the east, and Norikura Kougen is a ski resort area accessible by one of the many innocuous side roads along this path. And this area is truly a resort. There are so many beautiful massive homes, hotels, and businesses built around the 70s to 90s. But now many of them look empty and left to rot. The whole area feels like a time capsule of Japan's booming economic days.
This was my second Photo Rogaining event. The Takayama Rogaining event last year was my first one, and I am totally hooked on these now. Photo Orienteering is perhaps a better term for this kind of event (or a Photo Scavenger Hunt). The race has a determined time limit. You are given a map and set of checkpoints 20 minutes prior to the start. Given the map, you are to design your own course and try to "collect" as many checkpoints as possible. Each checkpoint has its own point total, and each checkpoint has a photo which you are meant to recreate.
The furthest away checkpoints tend to have the highest point totals. However, there are often many low point checkpoint clusters in specific spots, too. Understanding distances and travel times is important for initial strategic planning, but you must also be able to improvise changes depending on where you are and how much time is left. Also, being able to navigate and understand paper maps is obviously key.
After running my first event last year, I had the idea that taking big swings tends to be a better approach than cleaning up a bunch of the clustered points. So this was my main initial strategy.
Reception for the Rogaining event took place at the Norikura Kougen Tourism Center 乗鞍観光センター 2nd Floor. I arrived early enough even though I was stuck behind someone driving 30kph almost the whole way. Ugh.
Prior to the start of the race, as part of the Norikura Kougen preservation efforts, we spent about 20 minutes deplanting as many dandelions as possible. Dandelions are an invasion species in this area, and it's the duty of those walking the trails to help preserve the park. Throughout running the event, dandelions were everywhere, too, so I feel pretty sorry for the park rangers.
Then the time finally came, and we got our map.
From looking at the map, it seemed clear that the bulk of the checkpoints were to the east, and that I should probably aim for 141. So, my plan was to go immediately south, grab some of the mid points, then head east and grab all the points on the way to 141. Then, take the southern route back to clean up the remaining eastern points, and then figure out what to do with the remaining time. All of these totalled over 1000, so with those and then more western points, I thought it was a good idea.
That was the plan. The race began at 12pm, and as the chime rang, it seemed like the bulk of the group was heading to the same location, Point 31 at the base of a hill on the bike path, marked as kanban 看板, or signboard. I went down to the bottom, and then I backtracked to the top and went a little further down the road to grab Point 61, marked as anbu 鞍部, or saddlebag.
31 → 61 // (92 points)
Many of the checkpoints where distinct landmarks, but there were several points at the map that were orienteering markers instead, like Point 61. These checkpoints were a little annoying as some of them were buried into the forest or obscured by branches or shrubs. Some of them took a little time to find. But, at least they were distinct enough that when you did find them, it was clear.
I popped out of the woods and ran down the road to Point 51, a signpost 道標. I took a little bit of an unnecessary detour going off road to get to the cycle path that ran underneath the road. It may have been faster to have continued on the road and backtrack after getting 51. But, I got it, and then went on another detour to grab Point 73, some stop-sign posts 看板.
51 → 73 // (+124 points / 216 total)
I didn't think about it at the time, but going out of my way to grab both Point 61 and Point 73 ended up taking unnecessary time. I could have easily gotten these points later in the race.
Anyways, from Point 73, I took the cross country path (which also followed some kind of forest chipping golf course) to the camp site at Point 37, and snapped a photo at the sign indicating that Switzerland was 9524km in "that" direction. Running out of the camp site, I went down the hill and entered another cross country path leading to Point 93, the fishing bridge つり橋.
37 → 93 // (+130 points / 346 total)
The cross country path connected to a side road and then connected to the main road. While continuing down the road, a woman ran passed me pretty quickly. I had noticed her earlier, too, at point 61, but she hopped into the woods at the wrong point and had spent some time roaming around trying to find the marker.
I was coming close to the turn off for Point 65, and I thought that she was going to same spot, but she ran passed the side path. I went up the bike hill to grab Point 65, another signpost 看板, then double-backed to continue east. I then passed the woman as she was going up the hill now to point 65. She didn't seem so great at directions.
Further down the road, on the side of the road, was a Phone Booth 電話BOX, Point 55.
65 → 55 // (+120 points / 466 total)
After point 55, the woman caught up to me again, but was trying to figure out the next turn off for Point 43, which is where I was headed, too. "It's over this way," I said, but I was wrong. We continued down the street further and found the correct turn off, which lead down to the river and the waterfall, Sengenbuchi 千間淵.
The final eastern destination was Bandokoro Big Falls 番所大滝 at Point 141. I was not prepared for the stairs. Continuing past Sengenbuchi led to 4 or 5 floors worth stairs to climb back to the road level, and then another 7 or 8 floors worth of stars going back down to reach the photo point of the Big Falls.
43 → 141 // (+184 points / 650 total)
I had hit my biggest swing of the course, but now had to climb 7 or 8 floors of stairs to get back up to the street and continue on. This really started to weigh on me. It was 1:20pm at this point. I've done pretty good for only 80 minutes in the race. I took a few breaks on the climb back up, but my thighs were on fire when I reached the street level. I was walking a little slow, but was able to move a bit faster after a few minutes.
I was really paying attention to time, but I got to Point 81, marked as 道/堰 (road/dam) at 1:40pm and Point 75, marked as 尾根 (ridge) at 2:05pm.
81 → 75 // (+156 points / 806 total)
At this point, I was pretty exhausted. But, can't stop won't stop. I was also running low on water, and I had scouted vending machine locations on Google Maps prior to the race. KURUMu Cafe was at Point 33, so I could refill there. I decided to forego point 67 so I could get Point 97, where the road cut through the hill 切通し. Then, get to the cafe. The lady at the cafe gladly refilled my bottles.
97 → 33 // (+130 points / 936 total)
It was 2:30pm. My plan now was to go south to Point 123, go back to Point 95, and then try and grab a few more western points along the road on the way back to the finish line.
But the combination of exhaustion, possible dehydration, running all day without glasses occassionally forcing me to squint and squish my eyes, not totally paying attention to time, and ALSO not totally paying attention to the distance made me think that going up the hill to grab Point 85 before heading south was a good idea. This was labeled as the staircase 階段.
Oh also, I should double back on the road real quick to get Point 35, the signpost for Ichinohi 一ノ日.
85 → 35 // (+120 points / 1056 total)
From Point 35, I cut across an open field to reach Azami Pond あざみ池 for Point 47, a birch tree blocking the path 通せんぼする白樺. I dashed away from the pond and continued along the cross country path to find the dead drop, Point 71, marked 尾根 (ridge). I also went passed the woman from earlier going the other direction.
47 → 71 // (+118 points / 1174 total)
It was at this point that I finally looked at my watch, thinking it was 2:45pm or something. It was not. It was 3:05pm. Crap, less than an hour left.
My plan had been to get Point 123, double back to get Point 95, and then get to the road up there and continue down. But there was a lot of elavation near Point 95, and looking at the hills to my west, it looked like a 20-story climb. There was no way I could do that at this point. So, let's get 123 and get back to base.
There was a little fumbling in the woods, but I found Point 123, another signpost 道標. Now, it was time to move move move to the finish line. Point 63 was on the way, but I didn't think I had the time to grab it. Luckily, I immediately spotted the location as I was walking by, so I snapped the photo of the birch bench 白樺ベンチ.
123 + 63 // (+186 / 1360 total)
I had made it back to the paved road. I no longer needed that map, and I could use Google Maps to determine my remaining distance. Oh shit. I had to cover 3km in 30 minutes. Not impossible as I could routinely do 5km in around 35 minutes, but that was at the beginning of a race not the end. Usually by the end of marathons I'm getting around 11 minutes per kilometer, and Google Maps said it would take 35 minutes by walking. I could not walk the whole way. I had to move.
So, move I did. I went right past Point 35 and Point 61, so I did not have to go out of my way earlier to get them. And I reached the finish line at 3 hours 53 minutes 51 seconds.
I could have optimized my path a bit more, but that is ultimately the challenge of Photo Rogaining / Orienteering. Understanding time and distance is fundamental. Actually, looking at the map now, there's a distance indicator at the bottom that I should have paid attention to earlier.
Maybe with some optimizations, I could have squeezed out one more location, but I was happy that I made it to the finish line with only minutes to spare. Much better than the 18 minutes to spare from the last race.
Although, even if I had squeezed out another checkpoint, I would have not even come close to the try-hards at the top of the charts.
Barring one guy who was DNF or didn't show, I was last in my division. Many of the dudes in the Men's Solo division were 20-year-olds who seemed like professionals. All the casual runners were in groups, and my score placed in the middle of all those groups. 11 out of 12 for Men's Solo, and 23 out of 35 for all teams and solos combined. The one woman who I often saw was just 25 points ahead of me, she got 3rd place in Women's Solo.
It's important to note that the max score for the event was 2500 points and Men's #1 and #2 both cleared 2200 points, which seems impossible. I did not consider achieving anything close to the max score possible for this event. Again, maybe I could've done better, but I pushed all the way towards the end and scored over half of the max total, so I'm pretty happy.
Again, from the first event last year, I learned that I should take big swings and not focus on grabbing all the little spots along the way. But, while I did focus on going towards the big swings of 141 and 123, I still grabbed all the spots on the way, costing time and energy.
Anyways, more ideas for next time!
