For the past three winters I’ve felt that the mountains of Hokkaido were a no-go. Snow and ice made impassible trails that were downright dangerous to even attempt. My wife was even under the misguided belief that the mountain trails were “closed”, i.e.  it was illegal to even go there. As preposterous as that sounds, many people in Hokkaido share these assumptions about the dangers of the winter weather. I took them at their word, until now.

With the bitter cold fading away I decided to trek up to the trail head of Mt. Moiwa to see how things looked. To my surprise I encountered quite a few hikers heading up the icy path. They wore crampons, some as simple as a few steel spikes wrapped around their rubber boots, and seemed relatively untroubled by the deeply packed snow they were traversing. I decided then that I would need to get myself some of these “snow spikes” as they are often called.

A few weeks ago, with some simple lightweight Montbell crampons (compact snow spike) I was able to easily scale the 531 meter Mt. Moiwa. While hating myself for not making that ¥2,000 investment  many years ago, I climbed the slippery trail without any issue.

The view from the top of Moiwa seemed more privileged in winter. Only the more hardcore hikers even make the attempt. Cold, windy, and silent – but well worth it!