A serow!

It was very fine morning, therefore I rode on my bicycle and went to my favorite place where I lately like to go, Mt. Sakata-yama. It took less than twenty minutes from my home but there is a steap slope at last so I had a very hard time going up.

I parked my bike in the parking space and took a few minute walk to the gazebo. On the way to it, I suprisingly met a serow, who was standing to look at me. I thought we had only around ten meters between us so it was very exciting to see him.

It was fine but hazy in the sky so I couldn't see even Mt. Izuna or the other mountains around Nagano. And I enjoyed to have a very nice breeze there. But I was very satisfied to see a serow this morning. On the way back to my bicycle I found a butterfly stopping on the flower of dandelion. I later found it looked like 'Usuba-shiro-cho'.

I like this season.

Mt. Izuna 1,917m

In this golden week I enjoyed climbing Mt. Izuna located in Nagano city. It is called as 'Citizen's mountain'. Yes, I met a lot of people including some families with kids on the way although the weather was not so good.

Ito san, my friend, and me entered Ichino-torii and started to climb. We went up while finding and see the little famous 13 jizos along the path. At Suzuri-iwa, we heard some raindrops falling on leaves or grounds so we thought again and again if we could continue it or not. But finally we knew we were right to go on.

Finally we got to the summit but it was so cold and so strongly windy that we got back soon after we took photos with the summit sign pole. Back to the southern summit (it is several meters lower than the real summit) and the Izuna shrine, we had a brucn (early lunch) there. Many people came back there and did the same too.

All through the route we had mere chances to enjoy the view from the top because of the deep fog.

I found some flowers like Okameno-ki, Shojo-bakama and Sumire on the way.
After back down to the place where we parked, we found the signboards and knew that we shouldn't have cars parked there. You know, there is a large parking place along Bird line and that is where to park.