Board bus 2:30 am
Arrive at Mountain 5:00am
Start climbing the largest Mountain I've ever climbed 5:30am.
I have such mixed feelings towards this mountain climbing experience. On the one hand there was amazing scenery, fresh air, and a summit triumph. On the other hand there were bugs, sweat, thirst, freezing weather/rain at the top, and a trail down that never seemed to end... and don't even get me started on the days of aching leg muscles.
Hakusan mountain is 2702 m high, and it is one of the three holy mountains in Japan. The others are Tateyama, and Fuji. We are climbing Fuji next month. The climb up the mountain was great.There is nothing better than the unknown, and a goal ahead of you. We passed waterfalls, areas of snow, mountain flowers, and rocky cliffs. It took us about 6 hours to climb to the area where we had lunch.
Keiko and I resting on one of our many much needed breaks.
This is still early on in the climb when we don't look exhausted.
Snowy trails
Finally reaching the summit at 2702 m. No rain or cold breeze was going to stop us :) Once we were above the clouds the rain stopped.
This does not look as dangerous as it actually was.
I made an aniakchak(sp?) for Kylie. "Now the people will know we were here" ahahah
My adorable students at the top :)
On the way down, slipping through the snow.
Our guide, Sakai-san
The whole group.
I'm not going to lie, the way down was not easy. We went a different way down, and it took us just about as long to get down as it did up. All I could think about was what I wanted to eat when I got off the mountain. When you are tired it is hard to concentrate on your footing, and down is tricky with all the rocks and stray trees. It felt so good to finally reach the bridge where we had first started over 12 hours ago.
Time everyone made it down the mountain 7:30pm
Arrival at home 9:30pm
Sleep was soooooooooo very good that night.
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