Now, I've been through the first half of the trekking course to Mt. Mutsuishi. The slope is getting steeper and steeper, but the views are dramatically changed. That is, the autumn colors start to appear!
Autumn Colors Report 2014 - Mt. Mutsuishi at Okutama (1/2)
Yellow leaves appeared on the right in the first place.
Then, I found red leaves on the left!
The trees are growing densely in front of me. Of course, the leaves are colorful in red, yellow and green.
It seems like the state of progress of autumn colors is roughly 30% - 50% near the peak of Mt. Mutsuishi.
The interesting point of this very short period is that the green color co-exists with yellow and red colors. Therefore, the yellow and red colors look pretty outstanding. Plus, this view has the blue color from a mountain at the back. What a nice color combination...
Ohh! The sunlight is making the leaves shine like gold!! It is really a good weather!
Steep slope had lasted for a bit, but this is the true sign of a very steep slope.
The slope like this continues to the peak of Mt. Mutsuishi. The only help is that you can enjoy these autumn colors.
Yes, the views are awesome here. But it is a bit burden on me to carry heavy camera gears. OK. The goal is getting closer.
The ceiling of leaves are pretty refreshing with the colder air.
I happened to find an open space full of autumn colors! This space, or rather to say the open hill, is off the main path on the right.
After coming back to the main path, I found this signboard soon. It is saying the peak is very close!
Now I arrived at the peak of Mt. Mutsuishi! I still had about an hour before the sunset time. I did streaches carefully and shooted the sceneries around.
There were tall trees around the peak so they appeared in the photos as obstacles.
But such trees did have autumn colors already! It was really a good day to enjoy autumn colors on the peak.
Surprisingly, I found Mt. Fuji between the shade of the trees! I didn't think that I managed to see it from this peak. So lucky! (Mt. Takanosu is the best place to see Mt. Fuji in this area.)
Now the sunset time has come! A bit more clouds were spreading than I expected, haha.
The sun is sinking into the clouds. My tiredness of climbing up to the peak was like being vanished from my mind and body.
The sun is hidden in the clouds. The clouds look black and heavy while the temperature is getting slightly lower. Well, it started to blow winds a bit.
Good bye to the peak of Mt. Mutsuishi. Now, I'm going down to the foot.
On the way back to the station, I came across three groups of climbers up the mountain. One of them said they were walking all night. The others said they were going camping at Mt. Takanosu.
In fact, I found this mountain easy to walk on at night because almost all the parts are straight. If you have enough protective gears and trekking equipments, night trekking and camping can be an enjoyable choice for you.
Thanks for enjoying my photos!