Livin' the McDream: Hiking the Hakkoda Mountains

Usually, Saturday is our "adventure" day, this weekend our Saturday was pretty calm with just the fireworks festival in the evening. So, today I was able to coax Keenan into a hiking excursion. The weather forecast was looking good, but of course it was foggy and threatening rain in Misawa. We decided to test our luck. As we drove, it rained. As we came around the north side of the mountains it suddenly stopped and the sky was clear with bright fluffy clouds, perfect! We took the gondola up the mountain to give ourselves an easier start, then took off on the trail. Learning right away that the weather at the bottom of the Hakkoda Ropeway does not always coincide with the weather at the top. We experienced clear skies, fog, drizzle, raindrops and then clear skies again. When there wasn't moisture coming from the sky it was dripping off of the leaves we brushed against and walked under on the more covered parts of the trail.

We didn't get an early start today and knew we probably wouldn't get up to the crater of Mt. Otake (Ohdake) so we just hiked a small loop and went back down on the ropeway.

See bottom of the post for more details about location/getting there/cost.

Below is a shot of the map I found with hiking trails. The entire map can be found here:

http://www.heronet.ne.jp/~rfstark/IS2004-Hakkoda%20Hike%20Map-GEN.pdf

Beautiful weather at the bottom of the ropeway!

View of Aomori City and Mutsu Bay.

"Mt. Akakuradake, Mt. Idodake and Mt. Odake still have clearly defined crater. Hakkoda is a group of volcanic mountains created from a series of geologic activities. The Northern Hakkoda Volcanic Range was created about a half million years ago and is the newest in the area."