Freshly settled into Japan, it is more than time to go explore what mountaineering the country has to offer. And this adventure starts with a 5 days winter trip to Kaikomagatake (甲斐駒ヶ岳), a 2967m peak located in the Akaishi Moutains in Yamanashi Prefecture. It is one of the landmark "100 Famous Japanese Mountains". It is best known in the winter season for its classic O-ren-dani right fork (黄蓮谷右俣) route, which, when in conditions forsm a near continous part gully, part canyon 3+ water-ice route for about 1200m! However, this route is not the objective of this trip. This time, our sight is set on the West face, a true paradise of serious mixed climbing here for the taking, for anyone motivated enough to get there! Without further due, a picture of the main (west) face, taken from the approach ridge.

However, climbing there is nothing but easy, with its 1700m elevation gain approach, virtually no information about the face and the conditions. This is the perfect occasion to get introduced to the Japanese climbing style of "Pachinko". For those not familiar with the term, Pachinko (パチンコ) is a japanese gambling game, roughly equivalent to what we would consider as casino. Except that gambling for money is not legally allowed in Japan, and these places exploit a legal loophole in the form of winning pachinko balls, which can later be exchanged with a third party for money. Applied to climbing however, this leads to a simple form of climbing where you simply get on a face, and select whichever pitch you feel like climbing ahead of you, until you (hopefully) get to the summit.

We went there for 5 days, from 31 December 2019 to 04 January 2020. This is the minimum length of time I would recommand to make a mixed climbing trip to the west face worthwile. Less than that and the ratio approach/climbing would be quite poor, and it would prevent from doing long multi-day climbings.

The climbing conditions turned out to be quite difficult, with a lot of loose powder snow covering the granite slabs of the face, and close to no ice. This made protecting the climbing challenging, and progression slow.

Definitely not your typical approach, we're looking at 1700m elevation gain through forest and a long ridge equipped with chains and ladders. All that with a full winter gear bag, cams, ice screws, gas, stove, food for 5 days, tent, ice axes... Nothing unmanageable either, and some 4 hours laters, we are getting ready to spent our first night by pitching the tent at the official camping area near the 七丈小屋 lodge. As the snow is deep, and we did not bring any shovel, we choose a spot along the ridgeline, which unsurprisingly proves to be poorly protected from the high winds of the night. But no matter, we are comfortably setting into the tent, with the gaz stove hanging from the tent's ceiling.

The wind has died down, and after a nice breakfast and enjoying some sunlight, we start our way up the final part of the ridge. We stop about 200m higher, on a large flat area a bit after the large boulder with two broad swords on it, about halfway between the lodge and the summit. It is now time to start rapelling down the face. That is of course, without much of any idea of where we are heading for. A first rappel brings us down on a snowslope. From there, two easy pitch of snow traverse lead us to another series of rappels. Two 60m rappels from trees and one on abalokov lead us down a large couloir. From there starts an uncomfortable pitch of traversing and downclimbing in between grass and trees. One final 60+ meters rappel brings us down to a short snowslope halfway up the face. Damn, the sun sets early in the winter! We don't have much daylight left, and it is already time to set camp. The ideal location is found after another pitch across the snowslope, on a small ridge surrounded by a few trees. After stomping out a flat spot there, we can finally pitch the tent, and repeat the cooking ritual.

After a good night of rest, breakfast, and taking the time to dry out the sleeping bags and tent into the morning sun, it is now time to start climbing our way out of the face. The day starts with a long sketchy traverse, up a snow slope perched on a granite slab. Despite my best efforts, the best piece of protection after 20m of climbing is a single cam lying dangerously close to the edge of a crack, freshly cleaned off its plants, dirt and loose rocks. A few meters later, a third of an ice screw comes to perfect this masterpiece of protection. Hopefully the climbing is not hard, although quite unusual: for feet a granite slab under loose snow, for axes, patches of frozen ground. A short traverse around a boulder brings to better protected terrain, up a steep snow-slope covered in trees. This brings us back to the top of the final rappel from the previous day. We are now faced with our first pachinko choice, which route will we attempt? A tempting line draws itself on a steep pillar accross the snow couloir. However, it seems that the second pitch is protected by a rather steep granite slab. Getting up it would most likely require artificial climbing, and we did not exactly bring specialized gear for that. Nevertheless, we let the temptation dominate, and I start up the first pitch, by an interesting dry-tooling traverse across a crack. It now becomes clear than getting up will not be an easy task, not because the climbing is hard, but because under the loose snow is a bunch of annoying bushes that prevent the ice-axe from even reaching the ground. The extra time it would take climbing through this uninteresting terrain, plus the time required to get up the artif pitch now seems quite unreasonable. We change our mind, and after downcliming the start of that pitch, are now headed towards the otherside of the couloir, which seems to offer an interesting mixed line up a narrow chimney. Building an anchor at its base does not prove easy, the rock is loose and there isn't much of any cracks. After a while, I chance on an old piton, it seems that we are not the only one finding it hard to protect. Completed with two nuts, we can finally start up the pitch, without bag for the leader to simplify progression along the chimney. I follow up the pitch with my heavy bag on my shoulder, which forces me to stay on the ouside of the chimney, and dragging along the extra hauling rope trying my best to make it remain on the slab outside of the chimney, so that the haul bag does not get stuck on its way up. Operation successful, I am now reunited with my partner up the pitch. Once again, sunlight is stopping us, and it is already time to consider finding a suitable bivy spot. While my partner hauls the bag, I start stomping out an interesting open-air bivy, located on a slope along a slightly overhanging granite wall. Hopefully, there is a lot of snow, and I manage to stop out a flat area just large enough for two people, in-between the rock wall and an 800m drop down the face just behind a thin 50cm high snow-wall. This is exactly the kind of bivouac I was hoping for, halfway up the face, with nothing but our sleeping mats and bags to protect us from the outside world. It's dinner time, the thermometer is now showing -12deg. We hang the stove from an ice-axed hooked onto the rock wall, cook our dinner and boil our reglementary two liters of water, and prepare for a good night sleep under the stars. What a bivy!

The night was cold, but hopefuly the weather held, neither rain nor wind came to disturb our rest. Still, we wait for the sun to greets us from deep within our sleeping bags. With its first rays of light, comes the warmth of a new day. Coffee, breakfast, boiling more snow to fill our bottles, the morning ritual is now well in place, and this time, no need to fiddle with the tent, we can get to our climbing buisness. The first pitch looks interesting, and not extremely hard. I gladly start leading it. However, it'll prove once again more challenging than it appears. After a first section up a chimney blocked by a large boulder, which I though would be the crux, I find myself on a steep snow slope with nothing but a cam and half an ice-screw for protection. Unfortunately, what I mistook for an easy hike up the face, proves to be a granite slab hidden beneat a meter of loose powder snow that does not offer enough resistance to the weight of my body, let alone any support for my ice tools, now releated to the mere role of snow-sweepers. Progression is laborious: cleaning the snow to find some small asperities on the face, stomping out precarious footsteps where possible. On the side, the rock is too chossy for any good protection. I'll have to rely on two hooks no-so-firmly planted into a small ground-infested crack. Would that work? Doubtful, but it gives me enough confidence to continue two meters higher, where there looks like there should be a decent crack for protection. Once again, disappointment, it is barely deep enough for cams, and quite chossy at that. Starts the laborious task of hammering the choss away, and building a triangulated two-cams piece of proctection. Somewhat satisfied, a thing ice-crack a bit above allows for yet-another-half-screw. With that in place, I can finally find my way across the final section of the granite slab, with a single tool placement on a tiny patch on grass, and crampons on granite asperities. Quite precarious, but it works, and brings me to the much-welcome protection of a branch. The pitch is finally over, with one big lesson, don't underestimate snow slopes! The rest of the day proves less eventful, between easily walkable snow couloirs, and a last pitch of interesting mixed climbing, with this time some decent rock. The day is over, and we have finally reached the ridge, not far from where we started our rappels two days ago. The rest of the evening is spent in luxury in the tent, buring away the remaining gas to heat up the tent and dry the gear out.

An uneventful descent, with huge bags, 1500m of infinite descent along an icy path brings us back to the trailhead. The ratio of climbing to approach and scrambling might not have been very good on this trip, but this certainly was a very nice introduciton to managing big apline peaks in the winter. I am for sure coming out of this experience with much more confidence in facing long unknown routes across multiple days in the winter. Not to mention the many himalayan stories of my guide. Who knows, I might end up there sooner than I think!

Armed with that new multi-day Pachinko climbing style, the only thing left to do is choose the next summit!