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.