“Should we finish boiling water in the morning and go to sleep?” I asked Seb as Jordan and I huddled in the corner of the tent cold, damp, and exhausted. We had just finished an 11-hour trek up a mountain through a typhoon and snow, the latter of which caught us all by surprise, and pitched our tent precariously on the top of a ridge just below Yarigatake. We had spent the next three hours boiling snow but were still a couple liters away from refilling our water bottles. The idea of waking up at 4am to catch the sunrise was becoming increasingly daunting.
“No,” Seb replied, “in the mountains it’s not about sleep but survival.”
While Seb was jokingly highlighting the lack of sleep we were facing, I found his words to be a surprisingly interesting framework to consider - when is it time to sleep vs. when is it time to survive? In this general dichotomy, sleep represents a comfortable pace where you can fulfill your desires while also accomplishing your work (we’d fulfilled our goal of getting to the base of the summit of Yarigatake and could have gone to sleep) and survival represents a state of hardworking urgency where you sacrifice to accomplish more (doing all of the necessary preparations, like boiling the rest of the water, to hit the ground running tomorrow morning).
Reflecting with this in mind, I realized that I could categorize most days as primarily ‘sleep’ or ‘survive’ days. Interestingly, I noticed that I didn’t find ‘survive’ days inherently difficult or less joyful than ‘sleep’ days (in fact some of my fondest memories are of ‘survive’ days) but the days that I do remember as taxing were unexpected ‘survive’ days and long periods of ‘survive’ or ‘sleep’ days.
In thinking about how to minimize the number of unpleasant days, I found myself wondering about the ideal ‘sleep’/’survive’ day ratio. Personally, I think my ideal ratio is somewhere between 3:1 and 6:1 - I still enjoy burning the midnight oil to grind away at something a couple times a week but any more frequent than that and I start suffering in performance, mood, or a mixture or both. This has held up as I’m traveling, too - I found that I naturally have had about 1-2 full and fast-paced days a week. Looking forward, I’m hoping to prepare my itineraries with this ratio in mind to see if it helps me feel fulfilled without burning out. If you have used a similar framework, I’d love to hear about it!
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Anecdote: A guide to probably the most awe-inspiring, beautiful, terrifying, challenging, and stunning outdoor adventure of my life (some pictures found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/sQBSJwqL7XqAfxWo9; https://photos.app.goo.gl/s9SQ4fSE6FLdiaxj6)
Monday
19:00 - typhoon begins
21:45 - meet Seb at the bus station
22:30 - take the night bus from Tokyo to Kamikochi
Tuesday
5:00 - arrive in Kamikochi (at ~1500m above sea level)
6:00 - store bags and begin hiking in the typhoon. See first glimpses of fall colors
10:30 - the rain stops
12:30 - encounter snow for the first time
13:30 - begin walking in ankle-deep (or deeper) snow
16:00 - get to the top of the ridge below Yarigatake (~3000m)
16:30 - finish setting up camp in the snow and begin boiling water
19:30 - take a break from boiling water to eat dinner and stare at the clear night sky (so many stars!)
21:00 - finish boiling water and go to sleep (read: shiver while desperately trying to rest)
Wednesday
4:30 - wake up and eat breakfast
5:15 - begin climbing up Yarigatake
5:50 - get to the top for a cloudless sunrise. See Mt. Fuji. Incredible.
6:15 - begin climbing down Yarigatake
6:45 - return to camp
8730 - pack up camp and begin descent
15:00 - emerge back on the valley floor
16:00 - finish setting up camp
18:30 - go to sleep
Thursday
4:30 - wake up and eat breakfast
5:45 - finish packing up camp
6:00 - start hiking up Yakedake (active volcano)
8:45 - get told by mountain hut staff that they are taking away the bridge towards the start of the trail to close it for the winter at noon. Begin charging up the volcano
9:30 - get to the top of Yakedake just in time for the clouds to clear
9:40 - begin descending Yakedake
11:55 - finish the hike
15:15 - catch a bus back to civilization