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Day 7 (8/3/02)

On Day 7, I woke to see cloudy skies but - so far at least - a clear summit, and so we decided to go ahead and climb Risshiri-san. This first involved a climb by bicycle, up a steep road to the trail head, where there was a very nice campsite with a clear mountain spring just a few minutes up the trail. In this photo, you see the harbor at Oshidomari and a ferry boat just coming in (probably from Wakkanai). The bridges to the right are part of the cycling road I traveled yesterday - and thus, unbelievably, they are for bicycles only.

Risshiri's mountain is a surprise. For one thing, although it's only 1719m high, there was still snow in early August. (Even in the Japan Alps, you have to go to around 2700m before you see perennial snow.) For another thing, most Japanese peaks turn into bare rock near the top - but on Mt. Risshiri, there are alpine wildflowers all the way up to the summit (in both the light green and dark green areas that you see in this photo) This makes Mt. Risshiri a nature-lover's dream... assuming that the nature-lover has any breath left to enjoy it.

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