2011/09/13 - Autumn Color Report: Mount Asahidake
Mount Asahidake
Welcome to autumn 2011! Over the coming three months, the japan-guide.com team will take you again to autumn color spots across Japan and report on the leaves' current state.
As always, we started reporting from Daisetsuzan, the highest mountain range in Hokkaido and the first place in Japan to see autumn colors. Today I visited Mount Asahidake, the highest peak on Hokkaido. Tomorrow I plan to visit Ginsendai, Akadake and Kurodake on the opposite side of the mountain range.
Approaching Mount Asahidake in the early morning
Following another hot summer with above average temperatures, the autumn colors are lagging behind their typical year's pace again. The bushes around the upper station of the Asahidake Ropeway have only just started to turn into first slight shades of yellow over the last few days. They will require several more cold nights in order to progress into more vivid colors.
Quite a few tour groups went hiking today - but few of them ventured far away from the upper ropeway station
Sea of fog - the weather was better on the mountain than down in the valley
From the upper ropeway station I hiked 90 minutes to the Susoaidaira Plateau, which is known to have particularly nice colors. But there, too, the season was still at an early stage, although scattered nanakamado bushes have already reached some orange tones.
I wish I could return to Daisetsuzan again in about a week when the autumn colors should have turned the mountain landscape even more spectacular. The colors in the higher elevations of the national park should remain worth a visit through the month of September, unless they get covered up prematurely by an early snowfall.
Susoaidaira Plateau - still mostly green with some yellowish patches
A cute companion along the hiking trail
Nanakamado bushes, the main provider of autumn colors, start to change colors in the Susoaidaira Plateau
Nanakamado bushes with their red berries starting to turn colors
Another provider of autumn colors, the Chinguruma grass with its cute white flowers, is still mostly green
Only scattered patches of Chinguruma grass have started to turn red
Blue berry bushes also contribute to the seasonal colors
Mount Asahidake
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