Haruna San

Hi everyone!

We will have another day hike on September 27th (Sun). We are going to
Haruna-san in Gunma Prefecture. It will take approximately 3.5 hours to
get to the trail head by car. The hike itself is easy-moderate to
moderate. The altitude of Kamongatake (the highest peak in the
Haruna-san area) is 1449 meters. The view from the summit should be
spectacular. We should be able to see Asama-yam, Kita-Dake, and
Yatsugatake if the weather is good. This is also a good place for Onsen.
We will probably take Onsen after the hike.

Last sunday a group of adventurous people met at the usual place to go to Kamongatake at the Haruna-lake. Kouichi's pessimistic weatherforecast could not stop us. After about four hours drive, arriving at the starting point of the walk, it turned out that my personal optimistic weatherprognosis had been wrong. Nevertheless we stormed up the first small summit, eager for the promised good views. We found a place which has really a good view over lake - probably I mean, if there's no clouds in your line of sight. So we didn't hesitate to attack Kamongatake right away. When we reached the peak finally, I guess everybody started to feel a little wet and there was a sense of slight disappointment, that the north alps were not so clearly to see that day. Since it was a group of adventurous people, as I mentioned, we then decided, instead of going over all the peaks, doing a small cross country orientation walk at the sides of Kamongatake. Using a dual-map multi-compass technique and a forward explorer, we finally found Kamongatake peak again. Due to the particular stable weather that day the path down was in good conditions for sliding down. Kouichi seemed to especially enjoy mud-sliding and back at the parking place it turned out that he was best prepared for this, while most others had to face the fact that in an Onsen you may wash and dry your body but neither your clothes nor your shoes.
In short: this time it was really hiking for the dedicated and I know for shure that I wasn't the only one who really enjoyed it.