Day1 of MCT (Michinoku Coastal Trail): Soma, the Southern Terminus 相馬市

The first morning of our MCT thru-hike came with perfect weather. The blue cloudless sky and the view of the calm, rather sleepy sea through our room window at Ryokan Isamiya 旅館いさみや convinced me of the smooth start of our over 1000 kilometers, 1.5 months-long hike.  

Last evening, we arrived at Soma Station 相馬駅. Soma, Fukushima, is the southernmost city of 29 municipalities across four prefectures on the Pacific Ocean side of the Tohoku region, through which the Michinoku Coastal Trail runs. 

Among MCT hikers, going southbound is undoubtedly the most popular route. All MCT-related public organizations seem to promote this route, too. The official map book has 10 volumes, and the first page of vol. 1 starts with the northern terminus in Hachinohe, Aomori. However, the distance between markers in the books shows the numbers from both SOBO and NOBO points of view. 

But, we were going against the norm: Northbound. 

The NOBO idea naturally came to us from the moment we started talking about the MCT as our possible next long-distance hike, and even after all the options and factors considered, it still seemed the most rational way. 

Our absolute unfamiliarity with the Tohoku region’s weather and temperature in early spring was one of the significant decision factors. As residents of the Shikoku island, a warmer part of Japan, we had no idea how cold Tohoku’s late March would be. Even with our limited knowledge, we know Aomori prefecture, where the north terminus sits, is the world’s heaviest snowfall place… A random trivia: the world’s annual snowfall ranking top 3 are all in Japan. 

At least it should be safe to think that more southern parts of Tohoku should be warmer than northern areas. Hopefully, the mild spring weather will catch up with us as we walk up to the north. 

Rather than staying for the night around the Soma station, we took a taxi and came to Isamiya. 

Located just by the sea, the general guest type of Isamiya seemed saltwater leisure-fishing fans. But, zooming out on Google Maps, we found the MCT southern terminus was conveniently only a 1.5-kilometer walk from it. It should be only an extra 20 minutes or less. There was another larger hotel closer to the terminus, but it temporarily closed during COVID time. Our experience at Isamiya was good and comfortable, so we were glad we made the right choice.

We checked out a little bit before 8 a.m. and started walking on a road along Matsukawa-ura Bay (R-38).

The southern terminus sign was placed in the bay-side park called Matsukawa-ura Environmental Park 松川浦環境公園.  

We took a photo of ourselves with the trailhead sign and studied the MCT map by the park entrance. The park was quiet, and nothing else was really special. I became curious about why this particular park was chosen as the start/end point of the MCT. 

On March 26th, 2021, at 8:25 a.m., our 1000-kilometer journey on the Michinoku Coastal Trail began.

Less than 500 meters later, we stopped at the first convenience store for much-needed breakfast and morning joe — only for me, as Erik is a tea drinker. 

Energized by a quick fifteen minutes of snacks and caffeine boosts, we first hiked down an asphalt road to the south, passed by several locals standing in line to wait for a strawberry farm’s shop to open. Strawberries grown anywhere in Japan are generally very juicy and sweet, and this farm’s must have been excellent.

Today, we will cover the busy residential area in Soma City and the more rural part of Shinchi town. An estimated 95% of the trail would be asphalt paved. 

The route should have been straightforward until we entered Soma’s city center. Until then, we would simply follow a straight farming road.
But, before long, our first route adjustment on the MCT had to happen. A large-scale construction to add a second bridge across the Koizumigawa River 小泉川 and Utagawa River 宇田川 blocked us from turning to the farming road we were supposed to walk. 

As usual at road construction sites in Japan, there was a temporary path for pedestrians and bikes through the construction area. Following that, we had to cross both two rivers. The official route was a straight farming road through the rice paddies area on a narrow land between two rivers. But now, many trucks and heavy construction machines were moving around in the area, seemingly to build new roads and probably embankments, blocking both general vehicles and people from entering the area except for farmers who needed to take care of their vegetables. 

Though I knew it was useless, I even asked the construction workers on the first bridge if there was any way we could enter the construction area and follow the farming road. Of course, they replied, “No,” shaking their heads, looking confused but trying to sound sympathetic.   

Not wanting to be nuisance tourists, we quickly walked through the temporary pedestrian path and pulled out our iPhones to check the route. Aside from the MCT official map books, the entire MCT route GPX file downloaded from the official MCT website had already been imported to Erik’s Garmin and my Geographica app. Besides, I got trail maps of two of the biggest Japanese hiking apps, YAMAP and Yamareco, so I had triple support for my route finding. 

We had to stay on the narrow car road south of the Utagawa River until it met the national road R-6. Then, we went up on the R-6 overpass above the two rivers and the narrow land in between and walked to the point where the overpass crossed the original MCT route. There, we found stairs to go down to the correct route. 

The farmlands on both sides of the road we were walking on were mostly empty earthen land — too early for the planting season yet. The straight farming road eventually hit the Utagawa River and turned into a riverbank road, where a few signs of spring flowery season appeared. It was indeed a lovely sunny day with a beautiful blue sky. We especially get excited to see the lone-standing half-blossoming cherry tree. Our first cherry blossoms on the MCT.  

During our MCT hiking planning and preparation stage, we contacted the NPO Michinoku Trail Club, the management organization for the MCT, to ask questions and arrange some bookings. They suggested we should drop by the Soma City tourist information center called Senkyakubanraikan 千客万来館.
It was on the route anyway, and we wanted to use the bathroom, so we entered the building. 

We found several media reporters and people in the same gray jackets gathered at the entrance hall. We posed to check if we accidentally stepped into a private event or something. They threw a glance over their shoulders but immediately lost interest in us, all looking like they were waiting for something else. 

Turned out it was the second day of the Tokyo Olympics Torch Relay, running through Tohoku. The relay started yesterday in southern Fukushima and ran up to the north. The selected local torch holders had been running throughout Soma City earlier this morning and would come here to check in and pick up some memorial gifts for them. 

The tourist information center was still open to the public, and the staff there were all very welcoming and friendly. They gave us a paper map of the MCT route in Soma and the MCT Soma pin badge. They had been collecting the photos of MCT hikers to post them on their social media and asked us if they could take our photos.  Happily agreed, and we had picture time.

The Information Center was located right next to the former Soma-Nakamura Castle site 相馬中村城 and a big Shinto shrine, Nakamura Jinja 中村神社. 

A long path to the shrine was lined with cherry trees on both sides. All trees had big buds but had not bloomed yet. If we could have been here a week or so later, it would have been the best time to see the flourishing pink corridor. Both sides of the cherry tree path were large open spaces.

Later, we learned that the Nakamura Jinja shrine and those open lands are the one of the places that the famous Soma Nomaoi Festival 相馬野馬追 is held every year. 

Throughout history, the Soma area, which is today’s Soma City and Minami-Soma City, is nationally famous for its good horses and horsemanship. People in the Soma area hold great pride in their riding skills and their well-taken care of and well-trained horses. The festival that has been inherited over a millennium is where they show it. 

At the corner of the Nakamura Jinja Shrine, on the wooden fences by the unpaved path we were following, we finally saw an official trail sign with the MCT logo for the first time since we left the Southern Terminus. Honestly, the lack of route markers in the farming lands area or Soma City center worried us a bit about the MCT’s route marking condition. No worries anymore. From here on, the MCT route signs consistently appeared at every important corner throughout the day. 

The busy area in Soma City ended quickly, and we found ourselves walking along a small river in another agricultural area. This area looked like the typical outskirts of countryside cities, with primarily large, open fields of dry, empty rice paddies, occasional vegetable patches, and scattered farmers’ hamlets. After passing a corner of big-box stores, we did not see any stores. 

While hiking through farmers’ hamlets between farmlands, we spotted quite a few houses with blue construction sheets covering their roofs. Some other houses had cracked walls and broken panes or boarded-up windows. At shrines for the village’s guardian gods, old roadside sign stones and stone lanterns were left fallen and smashed on the ground. All of these damages looked to have happened recently. They must have been caused by the latest two big earthquakes that continuously hit the Fukushima and Miyagi areas in the last 40 days.

We had not noticed that the color of the perfect bright blue spring sky had gotten paler and become more like gray. A sudden shower started pouring. Luckily, we were about to go through a tunnel under an elevated road, R-113. We took shelter there for a while to use it as a lunch break to release our shoulders from heavy backpacks and eat bars and nuts we got from the first convenience store in the morning. 

We did not know then that we were right on the Soma City—Shinchi Town border. 

The clouds that brought the shower passed quickly. Fifteen minutes later, we carried our backpacks on our backs again and stepped into Shinchi Town 新地町, the second municipality along the MCT. 

A massive old leafless ginkgo tree standing alone at a corner of bare grounds or pre-cultivation rice paddies welcomed us. 
Beyond that, we saw nothing but the same big, empty agricultural lands. 

While walking through a large sports park 新地町総合公園and using the public bathroom there, we checked how our bodies felt.
Our original plan for today was to call it a day at the next convenience store after the sports park. This convenience store was the closest point, 2 kilometers away, to the Shinchi train station, as the MCT route makes a right-angle turn by the store and starts going away from the train line in the direction of mountains.

The distance from the MCT South Terminus to the convenience store was about 22 kilometers. That was not too short for our general daily hiking distance, but it would be ideal for us if we could walk five more kilometers to get to Mt. Karou 鹿狼山 trailhead to make our hiking plan for the next day easier. 

If we could have booked a hot springs inn right by the trailhead, we would have walked straight to it without any contemplation. Sadly, by the time we called several days ago, it was all booked out for tonight. 

A possible solution came to us last night when we were in the taxi from Soma Station to Isamiya Ryokan. The driver told us that local day hikers often asked them to come to pick them up at the Mt. Karou trailhead to take them back to train stations. “It’s no problem at all,” said the driver, handing us his taxi company’s phone number card. So, we planned to walk at least to the convenience store and see how our bodies felt. Then, we would decide whether we stop there or go further. 

We arrived at the store, feeling still motivated and no foot pains. Everything was fine… um, well, that was not quite accurate.

Only several meters before the convenience store, I accidentally stumbled on a roadside step and fell badly on my face. Poor Erik’s heart jumped as he witnessed the whole scene. While he was helping me wash my face and hands in the convenience store’s bathroom, he said he felt like his life was shortened. 
Although my palms had a few minor scratches, and I had to walk with extra plumpy lips for the next couple of days, nothing in my body fortunately got hurt, and I didn’t feel down at all. 

While Erik was still reluctant about walking further, looking worried about me, I insisted that I was fine and that we should keep walking. 

We left the convenience store and walked west toward the Mt. Karou trailhead. The landscapes around us became more like the countryside. The wind blew over the pretty flat, open farmlands lined by windbreak tree belts of tall cedars and undergrowth bamboo. A large glass greenhouse stood by the very straight road we were following. Erik said this area reminded him of his home, the Netherlands.

As we approached the mountains, some farmlands were filled with the same densely planted, small, thin trees. As they all didn’t have spring leaves yet, we had no clue what kind of tree they were. Tree growing for gardening may be prevalent in this area.

We reached the Mt. Karou trailhead around 3:30 p.m. 

After looking around the trailhead to check what we needed tomorrow morning, we called the taxi company’s number. Our taxi came so fast that we had only a short wait of less than 20 minutes. As is often the case in rural Japan, the driver was a local elder who looked in his mid-70s and knew the area very well. 

As the hot spring inn called Karou-no-yu 鹿狼の湯 was booked out for the night, we needed to find an alternative option.

We didn’t see any other accommodation along the route in the area we would cover today and tomorrow, but we found a new business hotel right in front of Shinchi Station that has a restaurant and a big public hot spring (onsen)! 

We booked our room for two nights at the business hotel called Hotel Grado Shinchi ホテルグラード新地. The significant advantage of staying at the same hotel multiple nights is that we can leave unnecessary things in our backpacks in our room and walk lightly.  

Tomorrow morning, we will take a taxi back to the Mt. Karou trailhead and end tomorrow’s section at another train station north of Sinchi station to return to the hotel by train. 

Though Hotel Grado had a casual restaurant inside the building, we saved it for tomorrow’s dinner. As there were no grocery or convenience stores near Shinchi Station, we asked the taxi driver to stop at a convenience store on the way to the hotel and wait while we quickly bought food and snacks and returned.  

By reaching the Mt. Karou trailhead, we covered the first 28 kilometers of the MCT, including the additional 1.2 kilometers from Isamiya Ryokan to the MCT South Terminus. 

We didn’t feel any foot, hip, or back pain while walking or during the relaxing night in our hotel room. Strong winds continuously blew against us while we were walking. However, thanks to the lovely spring weather and comfortable temperature, we had the perfect first day of our MCT thru-hiking.