Rebun & Mt. Rishiri

We have been staring at Mt. Rishiri obsessively since we got here.  It is about 80 miles away but it is so big you can see it on a clear day from our town.  I always look for it when I take the bus up the coast.  It is usually too hazy to see it but it is stunning when the weather cooperates.  It has a smaller sister island called Rebun which we headed to first.  We took a quick hike and saw some beautiful cliffs.  We then took the ferry to Rishiri, met up with Jim and Dave at the campground and stayed in an awesome little cabin.  It was perfect, two sets of bunk beds complete with clean sets of sheets and down comforters.

The manager of the campground was excited to meet gai-jin and offered to take us to the convenience store to buy food and water for the hike.  He saved us a bunch of time and money in cab fare.  He also told us the best time to head out for the hike would be at first light.  3:00AM!!!!!!   So we bought a lot of instant coffee!  We got up at 3 but made it out around 4.

Chrissy was convinced that she was only going to do a little of the hike and then turn back.  But once she got started my awesome wife couldn't give it up and went all the way to the top!!!  6 hours later I was super impressed and very happy to be sharing the view with her at the top with her.  We ate a quick lunch, took some pics and then headed back down.  It got really crowded up there.  We were so excited to be heading back down but... it still took like 4 more hours to get to the bottom. We took a well deserved soak in the hot spring at the base of the mountain, had some ramen and then took the ferry back to Hokkaido.  Then we struggled to keep our eyes open on the 2.5 hour drive back home.