After one of the Spartan breakfasts for which Japanese youth hostels are justly famous (at least there's always lots of rice), I set out on the final ascent. Here you see the view a few hundred meters up from the hostel, when the true beauty of the area is starting to become apparent. One of the local ski slopes is just beyond the trees to the left.

This photo also appeared on the title page to this section, but I thought it merited another look. Count the ridges in this picture (I come up with a different total each time) and you begin to realize how high you are. This is around the 2300m mark.