Mount Asahi

In the beginning of May, there are quite a few national holidays that fall at the same time. This usually gives everyone a good chunk off of work to go places. As everyone gets these national holidays, traveling within Japan can be a nightmare because everyone is traveling. Japan isn't the only country that has this Golden week, but so does China and Korea and maybe others that I am not aware of. Thus, everything is hiked up and overcrowded at this time of the year.

I went on a 3 day and 2 night hiking trip during this time. I went with my two faithful hiking buddies and their family. It was Suzuki-san, Kimura-san and his wife and niece. The first day was probably the most difficult day for me. I wasn't used to having my big backpack on yet. We hiked uphill for about 5 hours on this day. We stayed in mountain huts both of the nights. (See pictures below, one from the inside and one from the outside)





I was overly sore after the first day, I was worried I wouldn't make it through all 3 days. But, surprisingly after resting a bit, my body started feeling a bit better. We were in bed really early to get up the next day. The second day was a lot of uphill and downhill hiking through the snow. We reached our highest peak at 1870 meters on the second day. The second day, at the mountain hut, the overseer man was a rather crazy man. It didn't help that he was drunk. The guy kept telling me to speak in Japanese and that English wasn't allowed. It didn't matter that I actually was speaking in Japanese, he kept reminding me. He was a bit crazy....

(from the highest peak)

And then, we woke up to a sunrise that I will never ever forget. There was a 'sea of clouds' with only the tip of the mountain we were staying on peeking out from the top. Then the most colorful, vibrant sunrise. It's one of my top sunrises ever. It was totally worth it.

The 3 day hike was great. :0)

Please click HERE if you want to see all my photos.