fine lines
Fuji-san from near Fujinomiya, Japan
14th October 2014
Category: mountain
morning
Leaving in the early morning,
moisture rises off the rice fields,
the blue ridges of the mountains dissolve.
Fukui, Japan
9th October 2014
crossing
Miyama, Fukui, Japan
8th October 2014
looking-glass
Miyama, Fukui, Japan
7th October 2014
glimpse
South west out of Tokyo the road unravels, from the gridlock of skyscrapers, through scattered suburban sprawl, and down and out towards the mountains, rising like blue waves ahead.
The hills look young, sharply ridged and thickly wooded, bridges like scaffolding bracing their narrow valleys. The road winds beside and between them, beneath groves of yellowish bamboo fanning their slopes like giant feathery ferns, and intermittently crossing turquoise-green rivers which slide out from the valley floors.
Japan is either steep or level. Where the hills stop, the plains start, and the rivers then meander slowly across them, between yellow rice fields and grey cities, out towards the shining pacific sea. The road veers out from the mountains to follow them, and before long we are rolling alongside the flat southern sunshine of the ocean while the land concertinas away – like a dream – in fading blue folds to the north.
*
first glimpse of Mount Fuji above the mountains
hanging flat
like a ghost or a backdrop brushed in palest
(almost transparent)
blue
Bus from Tokyo to Fukui, Japan
1st October 2014
ascent
Suilven, Assynt, Scotland
27th May 2014
Suilven
Suilven is looking at me, or at least that how it feels lately. Everywhere I look, I see it. Each morning when I poke my head out of the hatch, from our boat on the floating docks in Lochinver harbour, there it is; in sunshine, green dome gleaming; other times swathed in summit-crawling mist. Often its domed top is sliced off completely by cloud but it’s even more ominous then, its threatened presence looming larger than its actual visual spectre.
I stalk it back, from the safe distance of this far end of the harbour, preparing myself for the day I will climb it. From this side it looks impossibly steep – pillar mountain, Sula Bheinn – a rock hard phallus of vertical ascent. Locals assure me that it’s the long walk in rather than the climb up that is the hard part. However, this afternoon when I looked at it through binoculars I was actually frightened.
I was slowly scanning the horizon above the village, my eyes grazing, leisurely following the patches of light which were moving sensuously over the tilted scree slopes of Canisp, and then onto the lumpy moors with their little woodlands and clearings of soft grass, all greenly idyllic. And then suddenly Suilven – filling the view, filling the world.
I have to admit, my belly shuddered a little, my heart quickened and quailed. Suilven so close. And I am to scale it…
Lochinver harbour, Assynt, Scotland
17th May 2014
by yon bonnie banks
Water is everywhere, pouring, rushing, pooling; the land is alive with water. White burns bubble through the woodlands on one side of the road; on the other side, trees are drowning in a wide field of water. It’s impossible to tell where the course of the river is or was – the whole field is flowing, and high on the hillside beyond it, huge falls roar where there were none before.
We’re safely north of Loch Lomond now, but as we wound round its banks, the loch itself was beginning to take its share. The outer half of the road towards Pulpit Rock had disappeared and road crew were there on built-out platforms rebuilding it – on stilts. It was a tight passage round the cliff there, squeezing between the water rushing down the rocks and the gouging maw of the loch.
As we come further north, the streams multiply. The steep hillsides are threaded by strings of white water and, as we approach Glencoe, the hills are scarred and scored in white. Snow fills each high crevice and ravine, highlighting the bare black bones of the rock shouldering through. Below the snow, streams continue the white lines, racing down the creases to the valley floors.
It’s not just the intensity of the water but its frequency that’s overwhelming. Each rock face is run over by a hundred slim streams. Even on the lower slopes and flanks by the roadsides, a new stream is gushing down every few yards, flooding the road and forcing us through ford after ford. Water is just pouring off the hillsides.
Water falling, water rising. And through the air too, great banks of rain move in horizontal gulfs. From safe inside the car, they almost feel sheltering, these great grey washes, engulfing us, until the wind harnesses them into harsh lashing whips. And so, through the water-ridden world we travel, sheltered and invigorated alternately, and all the while feeling secretly blessed by these thousand bright white streams.
Driving up the A82 (past Buachaille Etive Mòr, Glen Coe), Scotland
20th February 2014