lost or what?

The bus leaves from platform 1 at Yamagata station. It is more of a coach than a bus. 1000 yen each way. I had no issue getting a seat as you can see. Nearly everyone else likes to sit right at the front. This bus has the fold down aisle seats in case they have a lot of passengers.

The drive from the city to the Onsen town is quite spectacular. Here is a big Torii gate a restaurant has built to attract tourists.

I was in town too early for much to be open. The Lawson convenience store was open, I stocked up on calorie mate and pocari sweat from there.

The town is quite large, this is not really the main hot springs bit, its more the main skiing bit.

My hiking course started from about here. Today I followed a map using the Japanese social hiking app thing, Yamap. It caches a jpg to your phone so that it still works while out of data range.

Sulphur gas was rising out of the ground in many places. Some times strange gases come out of the ground and people die.

I was actually a bit surprised my path was a secluded forest path. They have left a strip of forest between the ski runs. Although it has been well maintained, I saw no one else at all until above the top cable car station. Lazy bastards! It was only about 90 minutes and really not that steep.

This fallen tree branch appears to have collapsed under the weight of sea shells. I pulled a heap of them off and gave them to a little girl and now she sells sea shells as shes coming round the mountain.

If you squint you can see an ice covered peak with a ropeway station. Thats a different mountain though.

My feet got wet! There were a few streams to cross. I also saw a huge Serow, much bigger than the last two I saw on previous trips. Unfortunately he ran off before I could take a photo.

Nice path. I clapped a few times to alert the bears I was on my way and that they should take up a strategic attack position.

The forest hiking path crossed a few ski runs. They looked interesting. So interesting I ran down them later as you shall see.

Still below the cloud here, there is the town of Zao Onsen below. At this point I was still thinking when I got up to the summit area there would be blue sky. Wrong.

Sometimes the path became boulders. It was just after this photo that it was fortunate there were no other people, as I somehow dislodged a boulder that tumbled down the hill. That would have been really bad news for anyone behind me.

Here is the usual, required proof that I avoided the cable car. I am far too cheap for that. And actually it is not a particularly strenuous hike. Certainly not compared to Mount Tanigawa.

Time to cross another ski run. Almost in the cloud.

The path in places at this point became very developed. Probably for people to descend from the cable car and see the snow monsters. 'Snow monsters' is what becomes of these trees when they get completely covered in snow and ice. That only happens late in the season, probably March / April.

Ice was coming.

I realised that it was soon going to be cold, so I messed about taking silly head shots at this point rather than later when it would be too cold.

Getting quite icy, but you can still see the path is dirt at this point.

Further up the mountain, lots of ice. But I was still in for a surprise once I got to the summit ridge area.

The path became icy, but like I said earlier, it was never slippery.

It was just as well it was not slippery, as this part of the path was a very narrow trail along a steep hill. I dont think I actually would have plummeted if I slid off, it would have been more a fun controlled slide down. Still, I did not want to find out. I suspect the real path had disappeared in a recent season in an avalanche.

Then I popped out onto the ridge to the summit. It was amazingly windy. This little person froze to death.

That is just a pole, with ice hanging off it. Very interesting. Such wind!

The poles were very useful in near white out conditions.

Very near the summit, the sun almost came out. It was too cold to hang around, and the actual lake is a few hundred metres below, and that direction was just a sea of fog. I think it probably still is. I hope it is. I hope it didnt clear up minutes after I left. I could not stand up properly on the actual summit to take a photo.

Time to start retracing my steps. Quickly. To warmth.

The cloud was higher than before on the way down, which afforded me a great view.

Here is one of the ski paths I crossed earlier. It was at this point I decided to run down all the ski paths rather than following the same forest trail I used on the way up.

There is a whole network of connected ski trails. Lots of ropeways but these were not operating yet. There was no one else at all on the side of the mountain. Quite surreal.

A view across the valley.

I was still quite high at this point, but warm again, allowing me to take too many photos while running down ski slopes.

Here, have another. Its certainly a great view from here, over half way down!

Still following ski trails, without much of a plan, I just generally headed down whichever one seemed to head closer to the town.

Almost there. That icy peak is not Zao. Mount Zao is to the right and behind that area. I was hoping it was still fogged in!

And then I got back to the road, and this cat came over, and flopped onto my shoes and demanded I give him a good scratch.

His friend watched on with great envy.

Soon after I was back at Zao Onsen, these people are drying daikon on their balcony. They thought it was weird I was taking a photo of their window. They probably went and called the police.

It does not show up too well in the photo, but theres a lot of noxious sulphur gas coming up out of here. It was also coming out of grates in the roads. I still smell of sulphur now. More so than usual. Sorry spellchecker, I refuse to write SULFUR.

I had 30 minutes until the bus, time to run up the steps to the shrine.

Here is a view of the Onsen area. Best I could do with limited time.

There are lots of public spots to soak your feet. There is also apparently, A MIXED BATH!!!! Hidden in the mountains! Perverts from around the world travel to go there. There is talk of closing it because of this. People have been caught filming morally questionable movies in the outdoor mixed bath!

Last picture of the day, from the bus window. I was thrilled to find out I could open my bus window. The other people on the bus enjoying the 30+ celsius bus air conditioning were not thrilled.