Placing Things Where They Should Be | Joining Michinaoshi at Mitsumata Lodge

Joining Michinaoshi

This time I took part in "Michinaoshi," a trail restoration program run by STATIC and Mitsumata Lodge.

I had vaguely known about the activity for some time, but I had never looked into what exactly they do or what thinking lies behind it.

I go into the mountains often for hiking and trail running. I walk and run on well-maintained trails, and sometimes spend many hours moving through the mountains. Of course I understand that those trails did not simply form on their own, and that someone's hands keep them in shape.

Even so, I had rarely given much thought to the ideas behind how a trail is maintained.

This Michinaoshi was a chance to look at a trail I use without a second thought from a different point of view.

Creating the conditions for nature to recover

The Michinaoshi at Mitsumata Lodge is not simply about making a trail easier to walk. It imagines what a degraded place once looked like, and aims to restore its vegetation and scenery.

What matters most is the idea of "imagination and observation."

Why was the soil washed away here? Where does the water run when it rains? How have people walked here until now?

You do not look at the damaged trail in front of you merely as something to repair. You begin by thinking about why it ended up in this state.

What we actually did this time was set stones into trails that had worn wide, and into places where erosion had stripped the soil so that plants could no longer grow.

We carried stones from the surroundings, fitted them together one by one, and packed the gaps with small stones and gravel.

The stonework slows the loss of soil and makes it easier for sediment carried by rainwater to settle. As the sediment gradually builds up, a place for plants to take root appears. Once plants establish themselves, their roots hold the soil and help prevent further erosion.

Of course, plants do not return the moment the stones are set. In the alpine zone especially, plants grow slowly, and recovery of the vegetation takes a long time.

What I found interesting this time was that people do not complete the place with their own hands. They work with the natural forces that will act afterwards in mind.

Carrying and building up the stones is our job. But how soil settles and plants grow after that depends largely on the workings of that place's nature, such as rain and meltwater.

It is not only about how to set the place in order now, but about thinking what state it will be in many years from now.

It was a little different from what I had first imagined when I heard the word Michinaoshi.

How we relate to the trail

Until now I basically thought of a trail as something that exists for people to walk in the mountains.

Of course, I still think that is not wrong. Because it is a trail, it matters that it can be walked safely, and some maintenance is necessary.

But through this Michinaoshi, my way of thinking about maintaining a trail broadened a little.

It is not just about making a path that is easy to walk. It is about looking at two things together: people continuing to walk in the mountains, and the place's own power to recover. The shape of a trail is thought through with both in mind.

When the place changes, the environment changes, and so does the method of maintenance that is called for. There is no single answer to what is right.

This Michinaoshi at Mitsumata Lodge was a chance to touch one of those many ways of thinking.

And thinking about how a trail should be also leads to thinking about our own actions as we walk it.

A trail changes little by little under the influence of the people who walk it.

For example, if people repeatedly step to the outside of the path to avoid mud, the trail widens and the surrounding plants are lost. Depending on where trekking poles are planted, they can damage the vegetation beside the path.

Of course, as long as we walk in the mountains, we cannot reduce our impact on nature to zero.

Even so, I think there are things we can change by being aware of where we walk and how we use the trail.

We are not only people who use a trail; we are also involved in what becomes of it.

Thinking this way, a trail I used to walk without thinking looks a little different.

Placing things where they should be

There is a phrase that has stayed in my mind since my teens.

"Placing Things Where They Should Be."

It is a phrase I come back to when I choose something, make something, or feel that something is off.

I have never put this into words as a philosophy of my own. But looking back, I think this sense has run through many of the things I have cared about.

In this Michinaoshi, we used the stones and soil already there, and set up the environment for nature to recover while thinking about the terrain and the flow of water.

It was less about creating something new than about looking closely at what is already in the place and making use of the nature and role each thing has.

When I came across that way of thinking, I felt it overlapped somehow with the phrase I had long carried.

In daily life we arrange all sorts of things for convenience and efficiency. We pave paths so they are easier to walk, change the terrain so it is easier to move through, and make things uniform so they are easier to use.

I do not think that is bad in itself. In cities that kind of rationality supports many people's lives, and it is necessary.

But the same way of thinking is not always right in the mountains.

There the land has its own terrain, vegetation and flow of water. Within an environment shaped over a long time, we think about what to change and what to leave.

I think a city has the way that suits a city, and a mountain has the way that suits a mountain.

And that is not simply the same as leaving nature untouched.

In this Michinaoshi we moved stones with our own hands and altered the terrain. That is also human intervention in nature.

But what that intervention was meant to achieve was different from the trail maintenance I had imagined until now.

It makes use of what is already in the place, and even thinks about how nature will change over time.

I felt there was a way of relating between people and nature there, one that is different from making things convenient.

And perhaps the reason we are moved when we go to the mountains is that we touch that way nature is.

Stones, trees and terrain are not arranged into forms that suit people. Water flows, wind blows, snow piles up, and over a long time the scenery of the place is made.

Of course, the mountains are also influenced by people, and not all of nature is untouched. Even so, there is something there that does not go the way we want.

In daily life we often change things in pursuit of convenience and efficiency. That may be exactly why we are moved in the mountains by something that runs on different values.

This Michinaoshi became a chance to think again about a sense that had been in me all along.

What we can do in our own places

Having brought this experience back to the places where we live, what can we do?

I do not think the answer is only maintaining trails.

Each of us has a place where we live, and mountains and nature we are involved with. Each of those places must have its own issues and its own relationship between people and nature.

It is not necessarily right to practice the same method as Michinaoshi at Mitsumata Lodge somewhere else, as it is.

First, get to know the place you are involved with. Then think about what you feel there and what you want to care for.

You can look at the condition of the trails you usually walk, or learn about maintenance activities in nearby mountains.

Even without starting something big, it may begin with changing how you walk a little.

I want to carry what I felt through this Michinaoshi beyond that one place, and gradually put it to use where we are.

What to change, what to keep, and what to leave as it is.

This Michinaoshi became a time to think again about what matters to me.