There are several "Komagatake" mountains in Japan. One Komagatake is a volcano in Hokkaido. I know one in Hakone in Kanagawa, and this Komagatake is called "Kiso-Komagatake". "Kiso" means the name of the region around Nagano and Gifu.
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| Direction of Komagatake peak from the lodge "Tama-no-kubo". |
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| Tama-no-kubo lodge from a bit higher position. |
We arrived at a lodge called "Tama-no-kubo" which is located between the peak of Komagatake and Maedake on Sunday night. We walked in the dark... and when I found the light of the lodge, I was so relieved. How happy I was when I started to eat the dinner there!
Next morning, we started to walk around 9:00. It was late as a hiker but two of us worked for the observation of stars during the night (though I was sleeping). So we tried to stay until late.
The mountain is made by granite (igneous rock). So it is not a volcano. We could see many master pieces of nature around the summit of Komagatake.
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| Granite rocks along the trail of Nakadake |
When we were walking around Houken-sansou (another lodge), we saw a helicopter carrying something.
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| Helicopter coming to drop off the burden. |
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| Again carrying another burden and departing. |
I had thought a helicopter can store a burden inside. No! It carried burden hanging at the bottom. It was nice to see the helicopter flying against the blue sky.
"Senjo-jiki" is a topography made by glacier and its shape is like a bowl. Literally, Senjo-jiki means the place covered by 1000 tatami sheets in Japanese. Japanese tends to call broad place "Senjo-jiki". Therefore, we can also find Senjo-jiki along the coast somewhere in Japan. Here, it is around the middle slope of the mountain. We can find alpine plants and bushes there, and it turns to red and yellow in autumn. So we expected to see such colorful scenery there. However, the season of colorful trees had already passed because a typhoon which attacked Senjo-jiki one week before blew all leaves from the bushes.
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| Senjo-jiki field |
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| Small red fruits (Its name is unknown) |
I found small red fruits instead. I don't know the name but it was pretty!
And... the colorful leaves are seen from the gondola (we call it "Ropeway") and around the bottom station of gondola, "Shirabi-daira". It will be a climax at the Shirabi-daira in one week. Then, this region will be "winter" in November as the altitude is high. Anyway, we were very lucky with the weather.
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| Scenery from a ropeway gondola |
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| Scenery around Shirabi-daira, the bottom station of the gondola |
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