Mt. Moiwa

We've been going nonstop every since Anthony and Allyson arrived on Monday. They kept us too busy to even have time for blogging! It was a great visit. Today we woke up to a forecast of rain all day and a 101 degree fever for the littlest Green, so it looks like we're in for a day of lounging on the couch with cartoons and lots of time for blogging. I'm going to do my best to get caught up on all the highlights from the week. Here goes...

My favorite adventure of the week was our hike to the top of Mt. Moiwa. It was significantly more intense than we had thought it would be, but the views and the climb through the dense forest were absolutely worth it. We started the hike from Asahiyama Memorial Park which itself stands at 451 feet above sea level offering great views over Sapporo and to the surrounding mountains.

Also at the park were the ubiquitous crows that we can't seem to escape no matter where we go. They are HUGE and aggressive and vocal and just plain creepy. We've seen them attempt to steal things out of our unattended bags, get into mid-air fights of scraps of food, and caw so emphatically that they sound like snorting pigs. We're not fans...especially Fiona.

After taking in the views and shooing some crows, we set off on this seemingly innocent path through the park to the start of the Mt Moiwa trailhead.

It was an easy walk to this marker, where we turned off the paved path to start our climb up the mountain.

Once we reached the trail, we were greeted by lots of red signs that gave us a bit of pause as we wondered what they might be warning us about. After spending some time on them using Google Translate, we arrived at a consensus that they were probably just telling us the trail could be dangerous when wet or snow covered. Despite the fact that none of us were particularly confident in this translation, we continued on thinking we'd reach the summit quickly given that it was less than two miles away.

What we hadn't really accounted for was the fact that we needed to gain another 1300 feet in that short distance to reach the 1750 foot summit. This meant that we climbed steep stairs like these for probably 85% of the hike. It was quite the workout!

About half way up, we started getting peaks through the trees. This was our first glimpse of the summit from the trail:

The buildings of Sapporo just kept getting smaller and smaller.

And the distant mountain views better and better.

Finally, the summit started to look like it was within reach:

The last stretch (a series of very steep switchbacks) was dotted with a dozen or more small shrines that helped us keep our mind off our burning muscles.

And finally, we broke through the dense forest. Just two more flights of stairs and we made it to the top of the observation deck. With views like this on a cloudy day, I can't wait to come back on a clear day!

After enjoying the views, we quickly agreed that we should take the easy way down. First, we boarded the "Morris Car" - the world's first drive-type mini cable car - for a three minute ride down to the mountain's main ropeway cable car.

From the mini cable car, it was a quick transfer to the larger ropeway car for a five minute ride to the bottom of the mountain.

Once we reached the bottom, we'd worked up quite an appetite, so we decided to head for dinner. We made our way over to Ramen Republic, a collection of eight tiny ramen restaurants each specializing in a different type of ramen and all designed to look like old time ramen joints. It was a fun dinner location. We chose the place with the longest line hoping that meant it was worth the wait and were not disappointed. We were so hungry and exhausted from our day, that no one thought to snap a picture of dinner before we all dug in.

After such a big day, we went straight home and crashed!