June 1st opens the climbing season for Akita Prefecture's Komagatake. It's the tallest mountain in Akita's north at 1,637 meters and an active volcano. This is at one of the lower stages where there was still a fair amount of snow left over from the winter. @jyokota and I climbed it mostly for the flowers, and were on a kind of tight schedule so that we could hit some hot springs as well, so we skipped going to the actual peak. It was neat seeing the vapor rising from the snow, called sublimation (solid going directly to a vapor state), which can happen in certain conditions. The rock colors behind the vapor were rather unique as well.
Here's the flower path near the peak and the windy path to the trailhead: http://www.365project.org/vankrey/365/2014-06-26 http://www.365project.org/vankrey/just-one-more/2014-06-26
