Volcano

There are many ways you can choose to spend your day. You could go to work. You could watch TV. Another option is to start the day with Japanese food, go hiking up a smoke-spewing, snow-covered volcano, through bear-infested Autumn forest, continue past the geysers, up to the rocky, snowy summit, then later relax in a hot spring and finish off the evening with more Japanese food and tea. Today I went for the later option.

I'm staying on the base of the volcano tonight, as I did last night. It's Mount Asahidake, and it's Hokkaido's tallest mountain at 2290 (point 3) metres. As with dragons, I think mountains are a lot more awesome when they spew smoke and fire. I didn't see any fire, but saw lots of smoke pouring out the side. The fact that it was covered in snow was also worthy of my respect.

A sign at the start of the trail was somewhat disconcerting, in fact it was mildly terrifying. A warning: Bears - a frightening picture, big red text (with exclamation marks) and a date - signifying I don't know what, I can only imagine. I spotted an elderly Japanese couple who seemed prepared - they had bells, so managed to tag along with them for 2 hours through the forest. The bells worked, we didn't meet any bears. The forest was beautiful: yellow, orange and red.




For the final 2 hours to the summit I went with a French couple. Over rock after rock, and eventually on snow. It was stunning at the top, but smelled of rotten eggs.



On returning to my hostel, I relaxed in an outdoor onsen (hot spring). Last night I enjoyed the same onsen, alone, under a million stars, surrounded by nothing but darkness and forest. In fact, it was a little creepy last night, it was so dark and the forest crept right up to the rocks I was sitting on, I kept looking over my should for bugs, spiders, snakes, bears. But then I'd slip back into the water and all my worries would melt away.

My time in Hokkaido is nearly up - what a magical place. I don't want to leave.