Quirky Quagmires and Moonsets

Enid and I's hiking adventures continued through the second weekend of Golden Week (4 holidays packed into one week). The weather was just starting to get nice, and it was way to early for us to climb the 3000+ meter Japanese Alps, so we settled for hiking the undisputed most beautiful marshland in all of Japan, Oze, and a peak in tourist-laden Nikko.

Oze is an elevated marshland spanning three prefectures famous for its spring blooms. In particular, in late May and early June the beautiful mizubasho come out in full force. Mizubasho is a beautiful bog plant whose name was lost in translation: skunk cabbage. E and I went early to bypass the heaps of tourists strapped with enormous cameras and tripods. It turns out, though, there were still tons of people there....AND heaps of snow! We tented it, and let's just say, sleeping on the snow is about as relaxing as it sounds.

It seems even the cold weather was on our side though, because we slept so little that we ended up getting up at 4 am. We saw the moon set and the sun rise....something I haven't seen since....ever. We cautiously walked our way across the snow pack, which at any moment would collapse and submerse your foot in a bootfull of water. Next: the nature of Nikko. After running over Enid's boots with my black bomber (don't ask), driving up a one-way mountain pass in the wrong direction (again, don't ask), and waiting in a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere, we hiked up a holy volcano. It was no Mount Ararat, but it did have a heavenly view and hell bubbling below it's dormant crags.