Setting Out While It's Still Dark
An introduction to sunrise hiking. Guide Yukinori Otsuka teaches the mountain etiquette that begins by headlamp.
The essence of a sunrise hike isn't seeing the sunrise, Otsuka says. "When you start walking in the dark, you walk the mountain with your ears and the soles of your feet, not your eyes. As night breaks, color returns to the world. Experience that once, and the mountain looks different."
Three promises for your first sunrise hike
One: walk the same trail the day before while it's light. Two: use a headlamp that frees both hands, with spare batteries. Three: work back from sunrise time and plan for 1.5 times the course time. "In the dark, everyone becomes a beginner again. That's fine."
As night breaks, color returns to the world.
When the eastern sky begins to pale, stop for a moment and look back. "The sunrise is announced by your own shadow before the sun. The moment a shadow is born, I suppose you could say. You can only see that on a mountain." The club's sunrise outings are once each in September and October. First-timers start from Susoaidaira.
