Wednesday October 21, 2009 Mt Asama

 

So one of the goals this week was to get as close to Mt. Asama as we could. I did some research from the Lonely Planet Hiking in Japan book and from the HIking in Japan website and found two hikes. The key was getting to the trail head. Both start from the little town of Komoro, but you need to catch a 40 minute bus up the mountain and there is only one bus in the morning. So we got up early and caught the 8:15 bus up to the mountain. Luckily the bus was a JR bus so we could use our JR Rail passes on it and save the 1350 yen a piece each way. It would have cost us nearly $60 dollars to take a 45 minute ride up the mountain. That little bus went up winding roads a couple thousand feet to this little hotel that looks over the valley floor.

This is the view from the parking lot were the bus dropped us off. There is a tiny hotel, ski slope and visitors center. It is where the trailhead starts the climb us the mountains surrounding Asama which can’t be climbed because it is still an active volcano.

View of the trailhead.

In red I marked some of our path from one of the minor peaks around to another peak.

Near the top there is a ridgeline – where a former volcano crater is now a alpine valley before the newest volcano cone rises.

This is the highest point we got – you can see the cone of Asama very clearly.

At the bottom was a lovely little visitors center, with a little cafe, information desk and a very nice bathroom.

And of course the ubiquitous vending machines selling coffee, ten varities of green tea and various juices, but no coke … Japan is such a lovely place.