Mt Houou: an overnight hike in the Southern Alps

Mt Houou (鳳凰山, hou-ou-zan) is one of the peaks in the Southern Alps of Japan. Sitting at an elevation of 2841m, its summer climbing season starts a little earlier than some of its 3000m+ Southern Alps neighbours like Mt Senjo and Mt Kita, and so I was able to climb this one in June. Notably, there is no one peak that is called "Mt Houou" but instead the mountain is officially comprised of 3 separate peaks - Mt Jizo (地蔵岳), Mt Kannon (観音岳) and Mt Yakushi (薬師岳). The word "houou" translates to phoenix in English. For the Pokemon fans, you might recognise this from the phoenix Pokemon Ho-oh. It seems like in the Japanese version of the game the Pokemon is also called Houou, which means they literally just named it "Phoenix" (very original). Mt Houou can be done as a long, 12-hour day hike, and this is how most people hike the course. Instead, I chose to do it with an overnight tent stay at the Mt Houou hut campsite. This was my very first time doing a solo tent hike. I did a number of solo…