Mixed Mount Aso

Mount Aso, an ancient volcanic caldera, is a major destination for sightseeing and hiking.  The area is still teaming with geo-activies.  The railroad to the west is still out-of-service from a 2016 earthquake, not to mention a couple of ropeways at the top of the caldera.  The road to the top for crater viewing is constantly being closed due to volcanic smoke and/or gas.  We had a hard time figuring out an exact program.

We arrived midday in the rain and could only look at the mountain bathed in rain.  The next day, rain stopped.  In spite of dense fog, we were restless and set out for the mountain.  John was against investing in bus tickets, given iffy weather, it might end up being a fruitless trip up the mountain.  In the end, we ended up hitching rides in four different cars: a filmmaker from Tokyo, a couple touring from Osaka, another couple touring from Hong Kong, a work van with no English (we never even figured out what their work was). 

We hiked up one of the peaks, Mt. Kijima, clambered around rim without falling off in the fog, walked in the other-worldly landscape of the big crater, the recently control-burned; and finally, inhaled, felt, but failed to see, the sulfuric release of the Nakadake in rain and fog, ended the day with most vivid rainbow ever.

We decided to be content with our Aso visit, and even though the next day was sunny we left with a more ambitious hiking program unattempted.

View on arrival of Mount Aso from our hostel balcony = gloomy


But there is a superb kitchen at Aso Base Backpackers and Sun-Ling cooked up some tasty fried noodles with local greens and mushrooms.


The next morning we start hitching about 9:00 am under grey, foggy, cloudy skies and caught a ride up the mountain with a filmmaker from Tokyo who was headed to the Aso Volcano Museum, passing this group of Taiwanese cyclists. Oh my!


View from the Volcano Museum overlook.


And the cyclists arrive.


Around 11:00 we decided the fog was not going to lift so we headed up the path to The Mt. Kishima Crater through a large area of "prescribed burn" grassland. Nice trail!





Occasionally the sun would win it's fight with the clouds and we would see blue sky above and/or landscape below.






The Mt Kishima crater is only a few hundred meters in diameter, but we never saw the far side. The perimeter trail just recently reopend after being closed. And the wind began to howl. But then died down. And as the crater was relatively small, our test foray along the rim trail took us about one-fifth of the way around according to the GPS so we continued and all was well.

Summit pic. 1321 meters above sea level.


Video of Sun-Ling.


Video link here.







And briefly the sun wins and we get an amazing view north.


Rim trail.


Brief look into the crater.


We head back down and find that the clouds have lifted just a bit and Mt. Eboshi is visible to the south.






This is more or less the view from the museum overlook that was fogged in earlier.


The ride down.




Rainbow near Aso Station....




....and over the hostel (at left).