Asahi-dake in Hokkaido

 Last October 2014, just one month after my lonely Oregon touring, I traveled Hokkaido, northern main island of Japan, this time together with my wife and my eldest son’s family. They have a kid of less than two years. My wife usually prefers to relax herself at home, not interested so much in holidays getaway. Furthermore she does not have much trust in me when it comes to driving, although she has no driver’s license herself. But when I returned from Oregon, US, she unexpectedly proposed to travel to Hokkaido if we could make a driving tour together with our grandson. 

 We took an early flight for Chitose airport, which departed Haneda at 6:25 in the morning. After landing, we rushed into a rent-a-car shop and started the four days tour; for the 1st day from Chitose to Sapporo thru Lake Shikotsu , on the 2nd day we drove through Furano to Asahikawa, and on the 3rd and 4th days we had based on a country-style lodge in Higashi-Kagura Forest,visiting Asahiyama zoo and Furano Cheese factory.

Mt. Asahi-dake
 For me Mt. Asahi-dake was the most memorable site. More than 40 years ago when I was a university student, I was heading to this mountain, as a final destination, with my trekking club friends. We were traversing the Daisetsu Mountain Range lying in the center of Hokkaido from Mt. Tokachi-dake through Mt. Tomuraushi. We had a small accident in boiling water for a morning meal in the tent, which injured our friend's leg seriously so that we gave up to continue the trekking just before reaching to Mt. Asahi-dake. Mt. Tomuraushi, among others, has been my most favorite mountain in Japan since then, so grandiose, quite, and beautiful with full of alpine plants. We needed to be only cautious not to surprise the local inhabitants of big brown bears with a  weight of more than 300 kg. But I have been wondering how Mt. Asahi-dake, the highest in the range, looks like which we had missed to meet at that time.          

Now 40 years later,  I rode up on tramway to Sugatami Pond station with my family. We did not climb to the top of the mountain, the highest in the region with 2,291 meters above sea level. It was still covered with ever lasting snow and presented itself really awesome. I thought it deserved to be called a tycoon of Daisetsu Mountain Range, which literally means “the Big Snow Mountains”.