Climbing Northern Japan

When I first arrived to Japan, I was extremely eager to make new friends and see what this country had to offer outside of Tokyo. Sure, Tokyo was a wonderful metropolis, but after living in Sendai for only a few weeks, I could see that there was so much more. Two of my most memorable trips with some of the other ALTs in Sendai involved some high mountains.

Mt. Bandai

Mt. Bandai is located in Fukushima prefecture, which is just below Miyagi. This was my first camping trip ever in Japan! When I first heard of the camping trip, I couldn’t believe it… it just didn’t seem like something Japanese people would do. But man was I wrong!

We spent a three day weekend in the wilderness, where I got close to many people and enjoyed some of the great, humid outdoors. Bandai is centered on give different colored lakes, mostly caused by the volcanic ashes from Mt. Bandai. While I didn’t get to see these lakes, I had a great time doing something completely impromptu… climbing Mt. Bandai!

I decided to climb it literally two minutes before hopping onto the boat ride that took us from the campsite to the mountain. Now, I remember Mt. Fuji being a pain in the ass last year, and this was no exception. I could NOT believe I actually climbed this mountain! It took over six hours, and my friends and I ended up being the last group to leave the mountain and return home.

The mountain is 1819 meters high, which is roughly 1/3 of Mt. Fuji. Damn it was tough though! I really started to be more conscious of my health after climbing that beast.

The coolest part though? There was cell phone reception on top!!

Bandai was legit, and I’ll probably go back next year. The BBQ we had was awesome, and I discovered many of my non-North American friends have never had smores! They had no idea what they were missing out on!

Mt. Zao Crater

Zao is a small city located in Yamagata prefecture, which is west of Miyagi. Its known for its onsens and this giant ass crater that is situated on top of a volcano that hasn’t erupted in years, making it a prime tourist attraction.

Although it was a mountain, there sure in hell wasn’t going to be me climbing it. No- instead we all took a bus ride up to the crater area and soaked in the scenery. It was great! I actually really enjoyed this crater even though there wasn’t a whole lot going on with it. Even on a cloudy day, the scenery was breath-taking. I think at this point, autumn colors were also starting to creep in, so we saw the leaves transform into beautiful shades of red, orange and brown.