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.