Daisetsuzan National Park, Hokkaido, Japan - Day 2

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, Bradley and I didn't sleep to well that first night. God knows why, we were completely exhuasted from the ascent up Asahi-dake and the sleeping mats we were on aren't all that different from the futons back in our apartments. At least mine wasn't. Maybe a few more rocks. Another problem the environment here poses is a distinct lack of logical daylight hours. The sun here rolls out of bed around 4 o'clock in the summers (and sets around 7) and when you're camping, you get up when the sun gets up. We were able to delay this until around 5:30 or so since neither of us got much sleep between the hours of 11 and 3. Bed time was around 8 o'clock the previous night, but these crazy old men across the creek kept us up until 9. NINE! Can you believe it!?! We were not happy campers. Anyway, back to my original point, getting up at the crack of dawn has it's advantages. For example, the weather is awesome...

This is the view literally right outside of our tent. Asahi-dake from about 2000 meters up.

Bradley gathering water, which we thoroughly boiled, for breakfast. I believe breakfast today consisted of a rice porridge with tuna and soy sauce. Tasty. By the way, at this point, which is probably around 6 or so, we were just about the only people left at the campsite. Everyone else, about 9 other tents, had cleared out or was just about ready to start their day.

Now this, I believe, is where logic stepped in. We were starting to get things together when it occurred to me that, as hardcore as I wanted to be, there was no way that I really wanted to be lugging this backpack around with all of its crap for the extended journey. I proposed a significantly less hardcore, but I think, in the end, more enjoyable trip. Rather than continuing south into bear country, a bit more flat but a little longer, we decided to stick to the loop we were currently parked on, a loop consisting of 7 peaks. Over the course of the day, we managed to climb all but one of them which wasn't worth it since it was in heavy cloud cover. But to make up for that one, we climbed another one twice that day. Our tent and gear remained at the campsite and we brought only the essentials.

Matsuda-dake, which we would be climbing toward the end of the day. I'm sure the view would have been spectacular, but, well, you'll see.

Further down the mountain range, where, if we'd had an extra week, I would've like to have gone.

Just to give you an idea of how the weather can change, I've got two pictures at the same location, one at the beginning of our day and one at the end...

Both of these are just about from the peak of Mamiya-dake. The surprising thing was that it wasn't even a gradual process. It was clear and then the clouds came swooping in. At the point of the second picture here, we'd been hiking in the clouds and rain for a while, hence the wet hair and rain jacket.

I loved this big crater that made up a big chunk of the center of the mountain loop we were making. Those are Hokuchin-dake and Keigetsu-dake in the background.

Working our way up that rocky ridge, taking in the view as we go along.

A great view of some interesting rock formations in the back there, but I mostly took this picture for the poor Japanese girl who just looked like she didn't want to be there at all. A few of her pals are on the right there, trying to identify a flower, a few more behind me looking at the crater and comparing what they see with their maps. I gave my approaching "konnichiwa" and she gave me this pitiful look like she was having the worst time of her life. Poor kid.

A few pictures now to show you how quickly the clouds moved in. The center of where all those clouds are is where I took the first picture of the crater. They really came out of nowhere.

We thought those clouds were just going to engulf us, but oddly enough...

...they wouldn't make their way over the edge of that crater. I wish this picture were a movie, because you'd be able to see the clouds hitting this invisible wall and just rolling up and back over itself, building up until hours later it finally spilled over. Pretty amazing thing to watch.

A quick look back at the trail leading up Hokuchin-dake, a short diversion from the main loop we were hiking.

I haven't a clue who lugged those benches all the way up to the top of Hokuchin-dake, but I was glad they did. Made for a nice little resting spot to look out towards the East. There is a second campsite, a little more "technologically advanced" than ours (i.e. it has toilets), which was our goal at this point. It's at the left edge of the picture, just out of sight.

The trail winds its way over to the ravine on the other side of those rocks, then follows the ravine to the campsite. Just like that big crater, I couldn't stop taking pictures of those rocks. Something about 'em.

My attempt at one of those postcard pictures with the flowers in the foreground, beautiful scenery in the background. If there are any Hallmark representatives interested in purchasing the rights to my picture, my phone number is...

I have no idea what that sign says. I even asked one of my students and she just looked at the picture, looked at me, and shrugged. If I find out, I'll let you know.

The one that got away. Keigetsu-dake. Hard to believe that about thirty minutes after taking this picture, it was engulfed in some rather menacing looking clouds. I thought we were going to have another (yes, another) thunder storm eat us alive, but the thunder and lightening must have been a bit further East. An interesting tidbit, there's only one word for both thunder and lightening in Japanese: kaminari.

I think this is Eboshi-dake, not really accessible from where we were. You can kind of get a good look at some of the constantly changing terrain in this picture. The flatter greenery on the bottom, moving up into bouldery mountainside, further up into the volcanic wasteland, and then finally the pile of rubble that seems to make up a majority of most Japanese peaks. I've read in a couple of places that Japanese mountains, for the most part, aren't much more than just really, really big piles of rocks, which we found to be pretty true. But there was also amazing diversity in the landscapes we hiked. Over the course of a day, we easily would be walking on somewhere around 8-10 different surfaces.

That's it for now, there'll be more later, I promise. I've still got plenty more pictures.

Daisetsuzan National Park, Hokkaido, Japan - Day 1

Some of you might have heard about an elusive blog somewhere out in cyberspace. Well, turns out I don't have the motivation, patience, or drive to keep up with that. Besides, when I write stuff like that, I just end up sounding whiny. On the bright side, however, I've been inspired as of late to start posting my photos from life here in Japan and, eventually, other places as well. I'll start out here with some pictures of my summer vaction to Hokkaido to go hiking in Daisetsuzan, a huge national park and mountain range they've got smack dab in the middle of the northernmost island in Japan. Feast your eyes on these.

This is Brad at the beginning of our hike. The idea at this point is to pretty much make a massive loop on the map, starting just below the legend in the top left and working our way along that vague line, eventually cutting back to the start. Ambitious, to say the least.

There was a cable car that would have taken us from the base to about half way up the mountain, but we decided we were more hardcore than that. The up side of that was getting views like this. The down side is that we each had an estimated 60 pounds of crap strapped to our backs (next time I'm investing in a water purifier) and it made the hard part of the climb, which you'll see later, twice as hard as it should've been.

The trail was pretty quiet up until this point, where the cable car meets the trail. I've managed to avoid the the hundreds of tourists around the volcano's vents (did I mention that this was an active volcano we were climbing? Asahi-dake, Hokkaido's tallest mountain at 2290 meters), but they were everywhere. The tourists, though there were a fair bit of vents as well.

Kind of like how everyone has to get a picture of themselves pushing over the leaning tower of Pisa, Bradley just couldn't resist here.

A look at the scenery below. It was hard to believe that this was the same country as the hectic, cramped cities that had been Japan before this trip. Not even close to the top, I might add.

A look back down the trail we'd been coming up. The Japanese don't believe in switchbacks, so this sucker is pretty much a straight shot to the top. This is somewhere in the middle of the climb, those are clouds blocking wherever the beginning is and those tiny wee dots on the ridge down there are people. Probably little old ladies. They are hardcore over here, don't take any guff from anybody. A word to the wise, don't get between an old Japanese lady and something that she wants. They're not afraid to throw a few elbows.

We were climbing in the clouds for quite a lot of the time, keeping a grip on the trail by following yellow circles or x's that marked where the trail did or didn't go, respectively. Brad and I thought we were just about at the peak about 5 or 6 times before we actually reached it (not shown here). The problem was the clouds. We'd cry out with joy at being able to see the end, then a quick breeze would blow several hundred more meters of mountain into view, then quickly mask them again. Mother Nature was playing some serious mind games with us.

Allllllllllllllmost at the top. A look back at the crap we'd been through.

A few pictures from the top of Asahi dake. And sorry, ladies, that hot, sweaty hunk of Australian man with his shirt off is taken.

I don't have any photos of the descent itself since it took me all of maybe 5 minutes to get down, but here's a view from the bottom looking back up at the top. That's a group of Japanese students that were making a 5 day trek around Daisetsuzan, just about the same trek that Brad and I thought we were going to make in 3 days. Anyway, this side of the mountain comes down to a little ridge with a campsite, just a couple hundred meters or so, but it's pretty much nothing but gravel. Steep, steep gravel. I think the quickest, easiest and most fun way to get down this side would have been just to set our backpacks down and use them as sleds, but we took the slightly longer and more ankle-threatening method, on our feet. We made it safely, though it took Bradley a good 20 or 30 minutes because of his lack of boots. Hardcore, Brad. Hardcore.

Home sweet home.

I was so happy to be almost done walking that I took a picture of flowers.

The fearless warriors, posing in front of their luxurious portable abode, nearly ready to begin their feast of various wild game they've caught with the incredible skills they've honed over years of trekking. Ok, actually it's 100 yen curry rice.

A nice little stream that provided us with water, some separation from the rest of the campsites, and the soothing trickle of a mountain stream to send us off to the Land of Nod. Oh, and certain death if we drank it without boiling it first. According to my guidebook and dozens of other people we talked to, all of the foxes in a ten mile radius like to hike up to the top of the highest mountains and just pee for days and days until it infects any and all water available, even the glaciers, with the nasty little virus in their systems that lies dormant for 6 years and then renders you helpless. Comforting, isn't it? By the way, a good indicator of our elevation, that's a snow-covered glacier on the right that's the source of this stream. In August.

God knows what time it is, but it's probably around 2 or 3. I think we were still adjusting to the sleeping bags and mats, but neither Brad nor I slept well. Made for a good picture though. You can kind of see part of the Big Dipper on the right side just above the clouds. Gives you another idea of how high we were, looking straight across at a constellation.

Anyway, that was the first day of our hiking. I'll leave it there for now, but there's plenty more, so please come back later on. I'll hopefully be updating this place at least once a week. It's a little tough with my schedule to find time during the week to do anything fun other than sleep and eat. If you want any of these photos, just let me know. I've got bigger versions and I'll be happy to email them to anybody I know. Sorry, dude-I-don't-know.