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posted: August 31st, 2009 |
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The photos on this page continue with August 10th and go through the end of the day - a magnificent climb of Mt. Asahidake, on Hokkaido. Click on any thumbnail to begin.
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| Begin August 10th |
Well, now it's August 10th. We took the Cable Car from near the Youth Hostel up to it's top and started climbing Mt. Asahidake. The top of the Cable Car is still pretty far from the summit of the mountain, as you will soon see. Now it's 6:11 AM, as we start climbing from the top of the Cable Car. The sun is just rising over the summit of the mountain. The 2nd photo shows you some cotton grass with a nice sun angle and some volcanic steam in the background. The 3rd photo shows you more volcanic steam and a whole field of cotton grass. We've only been climbing for a few moments and we're already amazed and impressed.
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Now it's 6:37 AM and we have reached Sugatami Pond. The sun is higher in the sky, but still causing interference with photos. This shot came out wonderful anyway. The next shot was at 6:55 AM - we took a long photo break at Sugatami Pond, which we are still at. The 3rd shot, at 7:00 AM, shows you the very sturdy emergency shelter at Sugatami Pond. We are now hiking again.
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Now it's 7:56 AM, nearly an hour since the previous photo. This one shows Kazuya looking happy! The 2nd shot was taken at 9:02 AM and we are still not at the summit of the mountain; we are dang close though, we'll be there in a very few minutes! The 3rd photo was at 8:05 AM and shows you Sugatami Pond, the emergency shelter there (if you look closely you can find it) and the top of the Ropeway.
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The 1st shot is me at the summit of Mt. Asahidake (2,291 meters = 7,516 feet) at 9:05 AM. The 2nd shot is approaching the summit sign - 9:04 AM. Is that beautiful scenery or is that beautiful scenery? The 3rd shot is Kazuya at 9:07 AM. It has taken us about 3 hours of steady climbing from the top of the Cable Car to get here. Our plan from here is rather modest and mostly downhill (except for the uphill parts). We'll hike past Mt. Kumagadake, then over the summit of Mt. Mamiyadake, then up, but not to the summit, of Mt. Nakadake, down to Nakadake Hot Spring and finally back to the top of the Ropeway.
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This first shot is the back side of Mt. Asahidake as we descend. Note the person coming down the snowfield. I did that too, the snow was soft and it was easy to slide down. What a beautiful blue sky! The 2nd shot shows you what's ahead of us - you can see the trail. The mountain ahead and to the left is Mt. Kumagadake. The 3rd shot shows some beautiful blue flowers and cotton grass against the beautiful blue sky of Mt. Asahidake.
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Here is a similar shot to the previous one, but this one shows some nice white cotton grass against that beautiful blue sky. The 2nd shot is a species of Primrose. The 3rd shot is a final look back at Mt. Asahidake as we round the bend towards Mt. Kumagadake. The time, if you're interested, is now 10:26 AM.
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The first 2 shots in this row show basically the same area, but the 2nd shot is zoomed in. The small pond you can see here is in the valley below Mt. Kumagadake. This was such an incredibly beautiful area that no matter which way we turned our eyes we were amazed. The 3rd shot is another valley which we passed a little while later on (it's now 11:10 AM). In the next row I'll give you both a zoomed in view of this area as well as a larger panorama. This area was incredible because it has streams flowing through it and according to the map it has a poison hot spring!
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As promised, here is a zoomed in shot of the area shown in the previous photo. Look over towards the left center to see the streams and possibly some rising steam to mark the poison hot spring. The 2nd photo is a panorama - be sure to look at this photo full size and you can clearly see so many features which you could not see in the smaller photos. The image which I can show you in the lightbox does not do this photo justice - if you'd like to see a larger size please CLICK HERE. The 3rd shot is Kazuya at the summit sign of Mt. Mamiyadake (2,185 meters = 7,169 feet). Now, the rest of the hike is pretty much downhill. It's 11:13 AM now.
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Here is one final extreme zoom shot looking down into that poison hot spring valley - I think this is the hot spring area. And, here are two shots of Bleeding Heart (Dicentra peregrina) with mountain scenery in the background. I mentioned in Row 9 on Page 2 that this flower competes with Edelweiss for being "my favorite flower".
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Would you look at that saw-tooth ridge, glad that we are not hiking up there. The 2nd shot is a beautiful contrast between yellow flowers, white flowers and the general green of the vegetation. The 3rd shot is a relatively rare Twin-flower (Linnaea borealis). It's obvious why it's called Twin-flower, right. And, the background is nice mountain scenery.
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Here is one more shot of a Twin-flower (Linnaea borealis) with beautiful mountain scenery for a background. The 2nd shot is a BEAR! Yup, again I must say that Hokkaido is "The Alaska of Japan". This bear was very far away - I used 48x magnification to get this shot, so that's why it is greatly distorted by heat waves and the like. The 3rd shot is a snow filled valley. I'm not sure that you can get an impression of the depth of that snow, but it must be at least 4 meters deep (about 12 feet).
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The first shot shows you Nakadake Hot Spring - right at the center of the photo you can see a large board - that is to sit on I guess. In the lower left corner of the photo you can see 2 people, this gives you some idea how much we are still above this place as we hike down the trail. After we got naked and soaked in the hot spring for a while we stayed here and ate our lunch which we brought with us. The time is now 1:06 PM. When we arrived here there were about 5 other people sitting around and 2 people soaking their feet in the hot spring. After we stripped and soaked ourselves then some of the other people mustered the courage to get naked and soak their tired bodies. As you can see, the pool is not very deep, but it is plenty hot! The hot water comes bubbling out of the ground to the right of the man who is rubbing his head. The 3rd shot shows the area as we started to walk further down the trail and continue on our way at 1:22 PM.
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As we continued down the trail to "Flower Fields" we saw a Buttercup with a butterfly sitting on a flower. Then we saw these Primrose flowers with the beautiful mountain scenery as a background. The 3rd shot shows 2 perfectly round mountains off in the distance behind a field of cotton grass.
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The first photo in this row gives you an idea of why this area is called "Flower Fields". Amazing, eh! The 2nd photo gives you another indication of why the area is called by this name. Then, in the 3rd photo, we round a bend in the trail, come back towards the top of the Ropeway and steam vents come back in sight. The time is now 3:15 PM, we've now been hiking for about 9 hours. We rarely rush though, we take our time and take lots of photos and enjoy ourselves. It seems that some people are just out to set time and speed records or something, from what we hear them discussing among themselves - we are out for enjoyment and we seldom beat anybody to the finish line (so to speak).
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And, here we are, back near the top of the Ropeway. What an amazing reflection. This is NOT the same pond which we saw this morning. In the 2nd photo you can see that some clouds are now rolling in to obscure our view, but it's still absolutely breathtaking; the time is now 3:50 PM - we hiked from about 6:00 AM until about 4:00 PM, about 10 hours. The 3rd photo was actually taken the next morning before we left, but it's the final one of this part of the adventure, so I'll include it with today's photos - it is the Ropeway Gondola car which we rode in to start our climb of Mt. Asahidake. You may notice that there are 2 people on top of the Gondola - don't ask us why, we have no idea.
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| End August 10th, End Page 3 |
| Thanks so much for taking the time to look at this page. Please continue on to page 4 for the conclusion of this adventure and also for the conclusion of August! |
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