June 21 - Of beer mountain

Spent the night in Asahikawa and checking out the local street festival, I woke up to another sunny summer morning in Japan. Onto a bus to Asahidake and from there a ropeway up to the lookout points and the trailheads. It was cloudy and misty up at that altitude - perfect weather for a hike. It was a beautiful 2.5 hr steep uphill trail with a few lakes , stunning mountain vistas, a couple of active volcanoes blowing sulfurous smoke into the mist

with all their might. The wind making it more mysterious by spreading the furor around the valley.
Ran into a couple of expats who were out that day headed to kamikawa - the other side of the mountain. They were great company to the top - where I said my goodbyes. And started on the misty, foggy downhill sorely missing my walking poles. Ran into a dentist from Thailand who was fun to chat with on the way back - she was visiting just Hokkaido for a few days. Had quite some zeal about furano - which I had clearly lacked :)

Anyways, back to the asahikawa station and after purchasing some flashlights , gloves and batteries for the Fuji hike, I caught the train to Sapporo. All shops had closed by the time I got to Sapporo , so couldn't do much except to settle in  to my night train ride to amori - where I was to reach at 5:30am the following day.