Jake Baggaley, a UK based producer and photographer, had visited Japan a couple of times, and his idea to run the length of the Japanese Alps had been brewing for a while. “It was somewhere that I’d wanted to go for ages,” he said. “And it just fell into place that we could go there for this shoot.” The route would have to be narrowed considerably to factor in capturing images of Rab’s latest trail running gear, but the plan would remain to fast-pack the trails, climb the third and fifth highest summits in Japan, and stay in mountain huts along the way. Getting a team together however would be the first hurdle.

English isn’t widely spoken in Japan, and as Jake began the task of planning the trip he immediately hit a roadblock, “When I’m shooting in places like this, I always want to work with local teams and be a part of the culture and community. I sent a few messages on social media but nobody replied. Even if I used Google translate, I didn’t get any response.” Finding it virtually impossible to plan the production without Japanese, he reached out to Rab’s distributor in Japan. With their help, he finally enlisted road running athlete and model, Aoi Chan, and Yusuke Tannaka, a trail running athlete and cameraman from the Kamikochi area. Jake also roped in a couple of his good friends: Sam Hill, a mountain guide and photographer, and Matt Green, an adventure filmmaker and competent mountain athlete. 

Besides running 60 kilometres, covering over 3,800 vertical metres, shooting a short film, and a ream of images for Rab’s spring launch, Jake’s main goal was for the trip to be a meaningful exchange of cultures and for the film to reflect the joy of sharing a mountain adventure. “I wanted to learn about the Japanese mountain traditions through the athletes we were travelling with and experience the hut culture along the way,” he said. “The Japanese Alps has got a really good network of mountain huts, maybe every 10K and there’s loads of different route options. You've got water refills, you've got food, and you've got places to sleep and stay warm in the evenings. It's kind of like a playground for fast-packing.” Having found that racing in mountain trail and sky races took the fun out of the sport, Jake is now a keen runner “just for the love of running.” The narrow ridgelines and technical mountain trails would be the perfect match for his skills, and the FKT would offer each of them an opportunity to embrace their competitive streak.

The Kamikochi valley sits in the Hida Mountains in the Northern Japanese Alps. The team would start their trip from the car-free Kamikochi town (“the Chamonix of Japan”) which serves as a gateway for hikers and nature lovers exploring the Chubu-Sangaku National Park. “The Daikiretto Ridge and the loop that we did is infamous for being this quite tricky scramble,” said Jake. “If you look at it on the map, it's a beautiful circular route that follows the ridge between two of the highest mountains in Japan - that was what really drew me to it.” The Daikiretto is a dramatic and exposed section of the ridge connecting Mt. Yarigatake and Mt. Hotaka-dake via a steep, spine-like traverse. “It’s not quite the Crib Goch of Japan, I think it's more technical, but it has that level of infamy.” With fixed ladders and chains to assist your progress, demanding downclimbing, and sheer 1,000m drops on either side, it's a route that requires focus - and a head for heights. 

Jake and the team had a short window to execute the project, lining up just five days in Japan to complete the route and the FKT on the vertical kilometre (VK) on Mt. Yake-dake. “By accident we booked the trip on the same weekend as the Japanese autumn festival, which is a big national holiday in Japan. It made getting into the huts we needed really difficult,” said Jake. The mistake turned out to be a blessing in disguise however with a quick change in the schedule that saw them luck out with the weather. “The day that we were originally going to go high, it was absolutely pouring with rain the whole day. Instead, we only had to do 5K that day from one low altitude hut to another. We got completely soaked and spent the rest of the afternoon drying out. But the high day turned out beautiful, clear weather, which couldn't have been better conditions.” 

 As they made their way around the circuit, they discovered Banryu and his story, the monk credited with the first ascent of Mt. Yarigatake. They stumbled across a small cave where Banryu is believed to have lived and as Yusuke explained more of the monk’s history, it seemed fitting to incorporate him into their film. “It was cool that we were following his footsteps,” said Jake. “He had been the first person to climb the mountains there more than sixty years before Westerners arrived.” Banryu’s motivations for climbing were spiritual rather than athletic, but he acknowledged that the paradise at the top of the mountain should be accessible to others. He set about initiating the construction of the iron chains to assist the climbers who would come after him. The project was completed in the days just before he died in 1840 and has been added to in the time since, with many metal ladders and chains fixed in steep and precarious parts of the mountain.  

After long days on the trail, the mountain huts turned out to be welcome refuges. Booking them required calling ahead and, of course, good Japanese. “It was quite hard to get availability for all five of us at a time,” remembered Jake. Sleeping arrangements were simple with futons on wooden platform bunks, not unlike European alpine huts, but what really stood out was the food. “Genuinely incredible food,” said Jake, “not even considering the fact that you’re 3,000 metres up.” Unlike the repetitive, carb-heavy meals typical of French, Swiss and Italian huts, the Japanese served up beautifully balanced traditional fare: miso soup, unlimited rice, an array of pickles, and small plates of vegetables, fried fish, or meat. “It was one of the highlights of the trip, for sure. I think food always tastes good when you've been out in the mountains all day but the Japanese have such a respect for food, it felt more like a ritual sitting down and sharing the meal each night.” Despite the language barrier limiting conversation, the shared experience of sitting down together after a big day on the trail created a sense of connection between the team. 

The high point of the trip was the summit of Mt. Yarigatake (3,180m) on day 3. That evening they spent the night at the Kitahotaka hut and it was here that the good weather really delivered. “We chose that hut because it's got beautiful views on both sides,” said Jake. “You can see the route you’ve just come along and there’s this perfect, impossible looking pinnacle peak in the background. It was covered in cloud as the sun was setting and then it all shifted to reveal the trails.” The team stood outside, enjoying the moment together with everyone else who was staying in the hut. “It was such a cool moment, that feeling of like, this is what I wanted – although I couldn't really enjoy it for long because I was being like, oh, quick get some pictures over here!”