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Asahi-dake
on the bus
We are driving through fog on the way to Asahi-dake. We left Rokugo at 8:30 AM and it is now 10:15. Hiromitsu says we have another hour to go. Through the fogged up windows I catch glimpses of fields with grain stacks or bundles of cornstalks covered with the ubiquitous blue tarps. Man, would I like to be the blue tarp supplier for this region! The sun just peeked through for a second. Carol leaned over and said "blue tarps in sunlight - a haiku". We passed a group of stacks covered in green tarps on top of a hill - must be a different sect.
The snow covered peaks suddenly loom ahead of us floating above the fog - pure white - or is it white tarps? the mountains look almost unattainable - so clean and so detached from this road with gas stations, tire dealers, and empty onion crates. We seem to have left the onion intensive part of Furano. There are some rice fields - with small rice hay stacks not covered with blue tarps yet - and some lavender fields.
We stopped to photograph the mountains and discovered a field of the blue tarp crowned grain/hay stacks so I posed for photos in my rain poncho very close to the same color. When I woke up this morning I found Carol's painting of me in my rain coat in a field of cornstalks crowned with blue tarps and the mountains in the background. I started laughing - it is very funny.
7:25 PM -- Rokugo Base Camp
What a day!
We drove for an hour and a half or so more through fog and finally came to the base of the tramway up Asahi-dake. Tickets 2700 yen! We changed trams halfway up and just rose and rose over a forest of Picea glenhi wrapped in snow. Each few meters higher was a different vegetation zone. I was amazed to see sasa - that pestilence the university forest videos railed against - up that high. It's very resilient. I noticed yesterday when the snow was melting down here the sasa would spring up as soon as the snow load got a little lighter.
At the top of the tramway we all piled out and started walking on a narrow path of packed snow toward a steam vent we could see just below the summit. The whole world was white. Every once in awhile there was a break in the clouds and the startlingly blue sky looked like an apparition over the stark white peaks. Eventually the sky cleared over the summit making for good photos.
I had no idea how deep the snow was until I hit a soft spot in the trail and sank in up to my hip! At that point, I decided to enjoy the steam vent from afar. Zsolt was a little way behind me on the trail and he lost a screw to one of his crutches. Rick rescued the screw and repaired the crutch while I held Zsolt's camera. I couldn't go anywhere anyway as I would have had to step off the path into deep snow and I was already wet from my first misstep. Once we got Zsolt repaired we started to go back while Hiromitsu went to fetch Ollie and tell him we had to be back at the tram in half an hour.
We walked slowly back to the lodge - Edith and George holding up Zsolt and me bringing up the rear. Suddenly I was down. I sank right into the snow up to my knees and pitched forward. I tried to push myself up with my hands but that just dug me in further. I called for help and once they realized I wasn't joking, George came and pulled me out. Whew!
My boots and jeans were soaked. My feet were so cold the rest of me shivered. I carried one of Zsolt's crutches the rest of the way down and used it like a ski pole. I was very glad I brought a dry pair of socks in my pack. With the dry socks and some plastic bags from Robin I was able to survive the tram rides down to the bus where my sneakers were waiting, with dry feet the whole way. My boots are still wet. I took the insoles out and I'm letting them dry in the hallway tonight.
Asahikawa City Museum
Later in the afternoon we visited the Asahikawa City Museum - warm and dry for a change! The exhibits included replicas of Ainu dwellings including one made of sasa! I can't imagine how they survived without burning their houses down every night! So much sasa, all dried out. It was an impressive house. The other Ainu house was made of grass and of a much sturdier design.
The lower level of the museum was about the natural history rather than the human history of Hokkaido. Stuffed birds and raccoons and foxes - there was lots of information on over wintering insects too but everything was in Japanese. The English language brochure only gave an overview of the museum layout, not the details on the exhibits. Still interesting though.
There was a huge replica of a tree suspended from the ceiling with stuffed birds in it. You stand on a little mezzanine with binoculars and look for the birds identified on the chart in front of you. I found the woodpecker, but that was it.
Rocks, geological stuff , volcano stuff - all things I would be really interested in but alas I cannot read Japanese and only the titles of each exhibit were translated. Lots of cool stuff to look at though.
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