Once again, I took part in the annual two-day, one-night hike to Mt. Hakuba, an event that’s become a tradition around the same time each year. This time, the route was a round trip from Tsugaike, with an overnight stay at the Hakuba Sanso mountain lodge.

I think it was somewhere around Mt. Korenge where the conversation took a dangerous turn we started talking about highballs and fried chicken. And from that moment on, that’s all I could think about during the latter half of the hike...

Of course, when we finally arrived at Hakuba Sanso, there were no icy highballs waiting for us (let alone any sizzling fried chicken). But as usual, we kicked things off with an ice-cold can of beer?cheers! Yep, that alone felt like perfection.

I quickly followed that up by whipping out some frozen edamame I’d packed as makeshift ice packs, and KYOU-san’s lovingly homemade cucumber nukazuke pickles. Naturally, I cracked open a second beer (500ml for 1000 yen, by the way). Ahh... pure bliss. Well deserved after a 7.5-hour trek.

Dinner was curry probably because there weren’t many guests staying over. I went back for seconds and ended up stuffed. Time for bed? It was only 5:30 PM... yeah, a bit too early.

Sunset was just before 7:00 PM. When I stepped outside, I noticed some suspicious-looking clouds down south. I quickly pulled up the weather radar?ah, that’s it! Looked like a localized heavy downpour. The cloud responsible had a pretty distinctive shape. Yep... makes sense.

Having thoroughly soaked in the scenery, I called it a night.

Breakfast the next morning was at 5 AM. After eating and getting ready, we were back on the trail before 6, heading down via Hakuba Oike and returning to Tsugaike.

As always, we ended up “boot skiing” down the slopes of Mt. Hakuba Norikura. My companions and I were saying, “If only this was snow-covered like in winter, we could get down in no time!” But of course, walking over rocks takes ages.

Anyway, we made it back down safe and sound. The local izakaya we used to visit for our post-hike “cheers” has closed down, so this time we didn’t even have a wrap-up party. We just kind of went our separate ways.

Still... this was exactly the moment for a highball and some fried chicken...

June 30 to July 1, 2025