Day 25: Matsumoto to Nojiri

October 20, 2024

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How does it go from 80F one day to 40F the next morning? It didn't feel too cold at first. Gaining elevation warmed our bodies. Stopping was what made us freeze.

Getting out of Matsumoto, and into the mountains, was remarkably easy and straightforward. At 8am, traffic was light, and traffic lights were few and far between. The wind was at our backs. Touring life was peachy.

We were necessarily very tidy in order to fit alk our bags in this tiny room. Packing was a different story. A bit messy, but we've certainly done worse.

Typical scene as city transitions to country. Love those low-hanging clouds.

Shortly after joining National Road 19, which we would follow for the rest of the day.

We cruised along at a great pace, considering that we were riding uphill. After more than two hours on the road, we decided that a break was in order. We found this train station, which had a waiting room we could hang out in. It was a bit warmer there than outside.

By the time we reached the first michi no eki, the chilling effects of the break hit us. We needed a hot drink and a warmer place to stay. Sadly, neither the cafe nor the restaurant were open, and while the other shops inside were warm, they weren't very inviting. After much shivering, we finally found a vending machine that served "hot", aka warm bottled coffee. It was slightly better than nothing.

As usual, Komoot wanted to take us on side roads wherever possible. I ignored the first one, felt guilty, and said yes to the second. This helped us sneak up on the village of Narai, the big tourist attraction of the day. It was about 11am at this point, and while we weren't terribly hungry, we were still very cold. We longed for a hot soba. I dialed one in on my phone that said it was open. It was not. I tried another. Also closed. Distraught, we sought a place out on our own and managed to find something. Many other tourists also found it, so we had to wait a while to be seated. It wasn't until we had eaten most of our soup that we felt thawed out. But we got there, and that's what counts, especially as we were headed downhill shortly afterwards.

Our first glimpses of some Edo Period buildings

The village was full of domestic tourists with fancy cameras, sprinkled with a healthy dose of foreigners who seemed a little more fit than your average crowd. I'm not sure what the deal with that is. Maybe there's a lot of good hiking around here.

Speaking of fit, we spotted a couple more bike tourists who were coming just as we were going. We didn't run over and say hi at the time, nor did we do so the second time we saw them at a konbini. However, when we finally stopped at a 7-11 near the end of the day, they rode up to us and we had a good chat. Another duo of Italians, Alessandro and (I forget her name) are riding from Tokyo to Kyoto, staying at hostels along the way. They got sick of riding through endless urban sprawl, so they headed north to see some mountains. We'll probably never see them again, but they're very cheery people, and as with all cycle tourists, we wish them endless tailwinds on their journeys.

It's a good thing we rested well, because just past Narai is a 1738-meter-long tunnel that runs under Torii Pass. There is a sidewalk (whew), and the sidewalk has a guardrail (whew), but the sidewalk is quite narrow (darn). It required all my focus to keep moving forward. It was what walking a tightrope must feel like. The more you think about the danger of slipping up, the more likely you'll slip up. Better not to think at all. Just breathe slowly, look ahead, balance, steer, and crank those pedals.

The next tunnel, while lacking any sidewalk whatsoever, was much easier. It was shorter, well-lit, well-paved, and most importantly, it ran downhill. For us, anyway. I wouldn't want to be the poor guy who has to approach it from the other side.

As if that wasn't enough fun, we soon encountered a series of three tunnels with nice sidewalks, but after each tunnel, we were forced to push our bikes up and down sets of stairs to continue. Thank gods for runnels.

All these tunnel shenanigans slowed us down significantly. We were counting on reaching our campground by 3pm so that we could air out our tent in the sun. At 4pm when we arrived, there was plenty of daylight, but only shade for our site. We did our best, and the tent no longer smells too musty. We enjoyed a lovely meal of curry rice with tofu and vegetables, with yogurt and apples for dessert. Not too shabby for camp food.

And yes, we're fools for camping in this cold. It's fine now, but I dread what condition our toes and fingers will be in come morning, when we have to pack everything up. That's a tomorrow problem.

Two small bridges lead us straight to the campground

We've got the whole place to ourselves! The best kind of camping!

Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 1,582 km (982 miles)

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