August 06

OBON HOLIDAY
Ahhhh…good times. Back home after 9 days of climbing, camping and road tripping around Hokkaido. After work on Saturday we drove to Hidaka to meet Drew and Maiko who had arrived there from Tokyo via Tomokamai. Unfortunately it was raining, so we quickly put up the tent and went to bed. Next morning dawned clear and we all headed to Akaiwa Seigankyo. We had a great days climbing, really hot and muggy but in the shade of the trees was not too bad. Great to see Drew again and to get to know Maiko. The usual faces were at the crag, a few more people than normal due to the holiday but not too crowded. Did many of the same climbs as before showing Drew and Maiko around. Tried another 5.11a but found it pretty difficult. Afterwards we had an Onsen and drove to Obihiro to see their fireworks display. Bit of a mission as it was 2 hours driving each way but the show was pretty amazing. Next day Drew and Maiko witnessed a ground fall! A climber was attempting a 5.11b and was attempting to clip the 3rd bolt and fell, hitting the ground. He was unconscious for a short time and initially had a lot of bleeding from a head wound. Sarah and I were unaware until we heard the ambulance and went over to see what had happened. Put a bit of a dampener on the day, a bit scary for them to see. However we continued climbing, I tried working a steep and hard 5.11c. Will need a few more attempts yet!
Next day we packed up and started heading northwards. We hoped to meet Rick in the morning at either Tomamu or Furano but he could not get a train until the evening. The train system in Hokkadio seems to be a bit random. Infrequent trains with long waits at some stations. So we spent the day looking at the lavender farms that Furano is famous for and drove up to look at the waterfalls at Tenninkyo and then to Asahidake town. These areas are in the Diasetsuzan National Park and were quite spectacular. There are huge rock walls on the way into Tenninkyo, and close to the road. A little amazed that there are no routes there. The summit of Asahidake, the highest mountain in Hokkaido remained out of view in the clouds. We returned to camp at a free site near Yamabie and picked up Rick from the train at 8.20pm. We wanted to climb Asahidake the next day but a bit of a late start and because of poor weather up high we decided to head to a rock climbing area near Asahikawa. Its name is Kamui Rock and is about 20 or 30 minutes from Asahikawa on the road to Sapporo. A short hike (20 minutes) brings you to the base of the crag. It is about 60-90 metres high and surrounded by forest. The rock felt and looked very similar to the schist of Wanaka. Although it was again very hot and muggy we did do a couple of routes. Sarah and I had managed to leave our rope in the car and didn’t really consider heading back for it, as it was so hot. We all climbed a nice long 5.10a. A great view once you had climbed above the trees. I then led a mixed trad/sport route, which was a bit scary. Some really old pitons and someone had removed the hanger from the bolt just above the crux making for a run out finish. Finding a snake in an important crack meant that I had to do some interesting moves through the run out to get to the chains.
We were all still keen to climb Asahidake so went and set up camp about 30 minutes from the base of the mountain. Next day dawned reassembly clear so we were off earlyish. Sarah, Rick, Drew and I walked from the carpark while Maiko opted for the gondola. An hour and half walking and we meet Maiko at about the half waypoint. It was a nice walk through the bush, slowly gaining height to get into the sub-alpine area near the end of the gondola. Here we could see a small lake and a few vents of steam coming from the mountain. We continued up into the clouds for a cold, wet and windy summit offering no views. However we were all still pleased to have climbed to the highest point in Hokkaido. Afterwards we said goodbye to Drew and Maiko for a bit as they decided to follow the weather and head to Wakkani in the north of Hokkaido. We only had a shopping day planned in Asahikawa so were not too worried about the weather. After a very wet night with little sleep due to the lightning and thunder we went into town. After some effort we finally found the outdoor/climbing store in Asahikawa. We were happy to get some supplies as there are no climbing stores in Kushiro. Then we moved on to Sounkyo, checking out another climbing area on the way but it was too late in the day to do any climbing. As our gear was still wet we opted to stay in a small cabin at the campground. Once set up we went up the road to Sounkyo for dinner and another onsen. Again it rained heavily over night so we were thankful to be in the cabin. The rivers were very high and some of the roads were closed due to flooding. This was a real pain as instead of 3 hours to get to Lake Kusharo it took us 5 or 6 with all the backtracking and detours we needed to take. We were heading to Lake Kusharo to meet up with friends from Kushiro. We had all organised to stay in cabins and tents together and bbq and onsen. The campsite was right on the shores of the lake and the natural outdoor onsen was only a few hundred metres away. It was a great time, drinking beer, eating lots of good foor and onsening and even swimming in the lake. The lake temperature is raised slightly because of the all the onsens on the lake front feeding hot water into it. The bbq was amazing, it was burning for about 3 hours and we ate all sorts of red meat, chicken, fish and even oysters! Fish sashimi was a bit of a treat (raw fish) as were the oysters.
Next day saw me nursing a very sore head but we had more good food before heading back to Kushiro. Drew and Maiko meet us for the festivities at Lake Kusharo but took a day trip out to Shiretoko National Park before coming down to stay with us in Kushiro. It was great that they could stay and see our hometown. We took them down to MOO to find some food unique to Kushiro. Next day they headed out to see Kushiro National Park and thus see all of Hokkaido’s National Park’s on this trip, afterwards they had a long drive back to Tomokomai to catch the 22 hour ferry back home.