Hiking Tsurumidake

I had another good hike this past weekend with Dean again, this time up the mountain with the ropeway, Tsurumidake. It is a quicker climb than neighboring Yufudake at about 2 hrs and the forest scenery is actually better in my opinion.

On the top is a whole set of buildings, thermometer, shrines, paths and other things to interest those who take the ropeway car up.

From there, we walked across a series of peaks that was speckled with mild up and downs. It was quite muddy in a couple places and we took several spills navigating down the steep trails, but it was fun.

We finally descended into a mining area with some large, undeveloped jigoku (hell onsen) spots that were bubbling and spitting sulfur fumes. A bit further was an actual onsen and past that some sort of posh onsen resort and restaurant.

We stopped for a tipple of warm sake before the long march to somewhere that actually had a bus stop so we could get back to Beppu. About 8 hours of hiking with a couple more lunch and rest breaks.