Training Report - Mt.Tokachidake (Mt.Tokachi) 27

When he started his training, preparing for the training in his car, he confirmed the outside temperature was minus 19 degrees Celsius. And as it was before dawn, the temperature was going down further during the training. He had to wear warm clothes. He wore disposable hot packs on the back of hands for the first time. He wore them on the instep as well as usual.

The road wasn't snow removed. As the tires of Schwalbe aren't suitable for fresh snow covered road (cf. Mt.Tokachidake 26), he thought to change wheels to those equipped with IRC tires which were in his car. But finally he decided to go with Schwalbe tires as they look more stylish. This time, he set their air pressure 160-170kPa (in minus 20 degrees Celsius Condition) as the compound get stiff in cold condition.

The road wasn't snow removed up to the Nakachaya Gate. But from the gate, the road was snow removed recently.

He heard 5 or 6 times the sound of frost crack before reaching the altitude of 800m. It means it's super cold. Frost crack happens only in super cold condition.

Springwater. It's amazing that there is liquid water in this temperature.

Hard rime begins.

Strange form of snow on the border marker.

A calm morning.

Even face cover isn't sufficient to protect the pharynx against this cold. His pharynx experiences tingling sensation of freezing although he veils his mouth with face cover. Usually he feels hot during the climb. But this day, he didn't feel hot even at a low altitude. Gaining altitude, he began to feel cold even on the climb.

However, he has to pull down the face cover as the glasses began to freeze when passing the KTV (katabatic valley) (cf. Mt.Tokachidake 21, Bogakudai 2).

One of the taillamps ceased functioning because of cold.

He raised the face cover again after passing the KTV.

He discovered that problems with this taillamp (cf. Bogakudai, Mt.Tokachidake 21) are caused by electronic switch. When the temperature is low, the voltage of battery goes down. When the voltage is low, the electronic switch shuts down fonctions which require a lot of energy because it interprets the battery runs out. This time, as the temperature is super low, the voltage went down considerably. The electronic switch thought the battery was gone and shutted down all fonctions to make change the battery. The older taillamp isn't so sophisticated. Therefore, even the voltage is low, it's continues to fonction lowering the brightness.

He's covered of rime which originated from his transpiration and the water of expiration.

He did sprint training at the summit several times as usual.

A lot of snow.

The temperature is still low when he descends. The ski goggles get fogged easily. So he lowered the face cover a little. This action made an small opening. But this opening will trigger some problems afterwards.

Because of this opening, the top of nose is exposed to the outside air. This exposed part became first degree frostbite afterwards and took 5 days to be healed.

Clouds are lower and lower.

Hoarfrost is beautiful.

He heads for the Fukiage Hot Springs.

But he wasn't very motivated and made a U-turn soon.

This time he descends to the foot of the mountain. The road surface condition isn't so bad but not very good. So he can't speed.

During the descent, his eyes' surfaces intermittently freeze. And in the middle of the downhill, his right eye suddenly hurts. The left eye suddenly hurts a little as well. The conjunctivae might have been injured by the frozen contact lenses. The pain to the right eye lasted for several days.

The road below the Nakachaya Gete wasn't snow removed when climbing. But now, it's well snow removed and he increased the velocity to over 50km/h.