Like many of our trips, this one was transportation heavy. It involved taking a train for 3 hours, a bus for another 30 minutes, and riding various ropeways/gondolas, before we even got to hiking.
View July 2012 Trip in a larger map
The map shows our route from Tokyo to Mt. Shirouma, which is one of the 100 famous mountains of Japan.
Getting to our first camp site involved about 3 or 4hours of hiking, some of it through snow fields.
We think that Michi got a little altitude sickness on the first day, which I can tell you from my perspective was frightening as anything. She seemed to recover pretty quickly, and we got some of the staff of the lodge to help us to get there. They even gave us free food and put us up in the staff room for the night.
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| This flower is called Mizubasho in Japanese. I have no clue what it is called in English. It is ridiculously popular in Japan. |
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| Crampons! |
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| First big snow field |
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| Me at the summit of Mt. Shirouma |
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| mountain flowers! |
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| Part of the hike back to the lodge. |
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| Part of the hike back to the lodge. |
The next day, Michi decided to rest, and I went on to climb Mt. Shirouma by myself. It had started to rain the night before, and it kept up for part of my hike. There was also a lot of fog/low cloud cover, so the views were nonexistent. On the way back, however, it started to clear up.
The original plan had been to camp at the big pond, hike Mt. Shirouma, then camp at another spot just on the other side, then hike across to another ropeway/bus stop and then head home. So instead of camping on the other side of Mt. Shirouma, I hiked back, we made dinner, packed, and went to bed.
The next day, we hiked back to the ropeways and began our trip back to Tokyo.
The new hiking shoes worked out really well, and the crampons were definitely needed.
I've got the rest of the week off, so I have a whole laundry list of things to get done.
Cheers,
