Hachimantai National Park, Part 1

Kelli and I went camping this weekend.  We did far too much and took far too many pictures with my (awesome) new camera to post everything in one go, so I'll post bits and pieces and lots of pictures.

After a bus ride up the narrowest, windiest road I've ever been on we started to climb Oneme-dake.  We had prepared for a full-blown backpacking trip.  Instead we had a brisk 2.5 kilometer climb.  Oh well, it is better to be over prepared than under prepared.

Most of the mountains near us were low rolling peaks.  Oneme-dake was the tallest we climbed at 1,637 meters.

From the summit of Oneme-dake we could see O-dake (center) and Me-dake (left).

Here you can see the steam coming out of Me-dake which is an active volcano.

Just below Me-dake is this strange crater.  The ridge in the background is actually part of a huge caldera.  Me-dake is a peak inside that caldera.  O-dake is a peak on the rim of the caldera.

 

This shrine was on top of O-dake.

You don't see things like this in Colorado.

We stayed the night in that hut.  We tried to sleep outside, but it was so humid that our sleeping bags were getting damp.  As soon as it started to cloud up, we went inside.  For those of you who have been following this blog, there is actually something worse than a squatty potty: a squatty potty latrine.  You get all the squatty potty awkwardness with that awful latrine smell too.  At least with the latrine you didn't have to worry about squatty potty splash.

All day the clouds kept rolling over the peaks.  We had to wait around for clear moments to take pictures, as most of the time we were enveloped in mist.  Late in the evening the clouds cleared up and I got this picture of Mount Iwate (2,041m), the tallest mountain in the region.  Hopefully we get to climb Iwate-san soon.

These are a few views of the mountains we saw.  It was a mixture of disappointing and surreal.  The mountains were so easy to access, so many people were there, and you could see so many cities from the peaks that it didn't seem wild.  Then the mist would blow in, you'd catch site of a volcanic crater and the foreignness of it all would catch your breath.  After getting over the minor disappointments the sheer wonder of exploring overwhelmed my thoughts.  Japan is a serenely beautiful place.  I'm so blessed to live here and see this.