Zao Hike! 2nd time LUCKY!!!

WE WERE LUCKY THIS SUNDAY! :) Mount Zao is well-known for its bad weather, but just as well-known for its spectacular volcanic crater. Mitsuru, Sundara and I tried our luck earlier this year but the fog was so dense we had to turn around and we ended up eating soba at a soba joint instead.... on this autumnal sunday, we decided to try our luck again, this time with Mitsuru's Mountain Climbing club friend Sugeno, and his girlfriend, Mari-chan.

This is a pic of Mitsuru and Sugeno. These 2 are mountain goats. They RUN down steep mountain slopes. this time, though, Sugeno was a little bit more 'reserved' because his non-mountain-goat girlfriend of 5mths was with him! haha! He Had to act chivalric and wait for Mari-chan (and me!) to make our slow way down the mountain! hahaha! poor Sugeno! Mitsuru didn't bother and on the way back, RAN, HOPPED, SKIPPED down the mountain in what seemed like less than 2mins, sat down and stared at the crater in thoughtful bliss while waiting for the tortoises to plod their way down the mountain.


This is Sugeno and Mari-chan. Mari-chan is a midwife! Midwives are in high demand, and painfully low supply in Japan. So her's is an occupation in danger of extinction! she's really sweet and hand-made ricecakes for sugeno to eat for breakfast!!



OK. This is how our Sunday went:
4am: Wake up & Shower (don't ask me why I took a shower even though i knew i was going to be sweating later)

5am: meet everyone at the big carpark of the supermarket near my place

6.30ish am: Arrive at Mount Zao - we get FREE entry into the carpark because it's WAY too early for the carpark attendants to be up collecting 520yen (abt S$6.50-$7)for every car that drives in to view the crater and climb the mountain. YIPEEEE!!!!! that kind of makes my day, cause the last time we went up to Zao with Sundara, we paid 520yen for a magnificent view of NOTHING.

6.32am: experience a sinking feeling of dismay as the fog swirls thick around our car.. the only saving grace is another black SUV parked about 6m away, it's driver also playing the waiting game

7am: between deciding to nap and deciding what our next course of action should be (shall we head for YAKINIKU at Yonezawa instead? etc.) we watch as a TOUR BUS with a whole group of enthusiastic aunties and uncles pulls into the carpark. the group proceeds Enthusiastically to form a circle and do warmups before heading into the WHITE FOG.... ?!?

7.20am: my tummy starts giving me trouble.. need to use the loo and am about to head out into the fog on my own when the rest of them decide to give the hike a try and check out the conditions nearer the crater.

7.30am: we reach the crater, a beautiful white swirling mass of FOG on our right....unperturbed, we decide to just continue hiking and see if the weather clears on the way back. at this point, i remember that mitsuru's camera has been left in the car! SHUCKS! oh well. the weather was so bad that i didn't think it was such a bad thing to have left the camera in the car.

we hike and explore zao and its interesting scenery and midway through the weather clears, offering us pretty magnificent views of the valleys of Zao.

and. lucky for us, we managed to catch the crater on the way back! by that time, it was already 11+AM. what was meant to be a short, light trek turned out to be a pretty long and interesting (read: challenging in parts) climb. Sugeno's girlfriend Mari-chan was pretty pooped i think!

Mitsuru wanted to have an individual shot of HIM ONLY with the crater, but unfortunately I wasn't going to let that happen. ho ho ho. this is how the shot turned out.


Group shot to round off what is possibly our last hiking trip of the year! Winter's coming and its going to get too cold (and snowy) to hike! Expect Ski pics the next time!