Kunoichi -the Girl with No Name

5. Mountain Retreat

The pine forests that spring up like floating, green beards on the rocky mountain faces are eerie places. The dark shadows of ancient trees lean into each other; shadowy old men looking for support from their equally ancient fellows as they watch my progress up through the barely discernible animal trails. I've walked most of the day, up craggy, boulder strewn valleys and through dense woodland covered in a carpets of pine needles strewn with cones sprung open by the warm sunlight playing through the thick canopy above.

At times I feel I'm being watched. Occasional a crawling ribbon of raised hairs sneak up my spine to alert me to eyes in the woods. But scanning the forest depths I see nothing. This is an odd place, I feel so far away from civilisation. I hike accompanied by the chattering of chickarees and the peculiar whistling sound of the breeze through the leafy branches. I walk steadily, knapsack cutting into my shoulders as the cool of evening begins to advance stealthy across the landscape. Soon the forest falls silent, as if it's dropped into a deep slumber of primeval woodland dreams.

After most of the day heading up a wide valley I'm surprised to come across a track cutting across the steep hillside. The deeply rutted surface shows no signs of recent use, old saplings pop up here and there and tall nettles crowd in along its edges.

After following a long turn in the track, a semi derelict, sagging roofed shack overlooking a poppy crowded meadow, creeps in to view. I approach warily and keep just within the tree line. Further down the valley nestles a lake so shockingly blue it reminds me of the aquamarine seas you see in those tourists' posters of micro-islands in the Pacific. The reflection of clouds scuttle across its perfectly mirrored surface, it's like a strange inverted world that tempts you to go down and immerse yourself in it, to swim out and lose yourself in its other-worldliness. For a moment I'm tempted to do just that, just to forget all this, to lie there in the still waters and give myself to eternity.

But I have things to do.

The house is a ramshackle affair, a hovel made of roughly hewn trees, sitting under a rusted, red roof of corrugated iron, strung with twisted hanging mosses, like a pagan display of evergreen decorations. Skirting the meadow through the trees, keeping a wary eye out for any activity, I can't see a vehicle outside but the chickens in a mud-pecked enclosure by a half collapsed barn warn me that someone could live here.

On the edge of the field I come across a small lean-to shack covered in tarpaulin to keep out the elements, the sort of thing young children would construct over many summers as a playhouse. I pull back its rotting wooden door. Inside, resting in a cobwebbed corner, in amongst piles of empty tins and fishing gear are two hunting bows and a pile of arrows. I can't believe my luck! A hunting bow! I pull it free of the debris, grab its tip and flex it experimentally. It's sound and the arrows all look in good condition.

With bow over my shoulder, extendable fishing rod in my back pack and a wide grin on my face, I stalk around the far side of the house and push my way up an ash lined valley, up toward the distant snow peaks strung out far above me. As I retreat further from civilisation a sense a calm descends over me. The sunlight, now low over the mountains, flashes hypnotically through the trees as I resolutely push on further up the mountainside.

I set my camp in a small clearing in the trees, where it will catch the early morning sun. My poncho doubles up as a shelter and again my nylon string is back in use, to hang the poncho between the branches. I brush up a pile of needles and lay my sleeping bag over them and quickly set a small fire using a flint stick I purchased from the camping shop.

With the fire trickling its wavering light into the descending darkness, I carefully prise off my boots and inspect my feet. The skin is all puffed up and blotchy, by the light of the fire I can see the little shards of glass as they catch the light. Using the tweezers in the medical kit I carefully go about removing the tiny glistening specs from my skin. When I'm done I gently pull back on my thick woollen socks and stretch out before the crackling wood, like a lounging cat before a hearth.