“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
– John Muir

It was early October. My friends and I went to Daisetsuzan National Park to see the autumn leaves. Daisetsuzan National Park is the largest national park in Japan established in 1934 spanning two subprefectures of Hokkaido. Consisting of 16 peaks, the name Daisetsuzan means great snowy mountains.

Despite the bad weather due to the typhoon in the previous days, we still decided to go. After 3 hours, we arrived at the place. We entered the information center where the park personnel kindly showed us the way to the trail. After borrowing boots, the park personnel came back to us and informed us that they had already closed the trail because of the fallen trees. It was so windy that day.

We were advised by another group to just climb towards the Mount Midori which is just adjacent to the park. There is a trail point after hiking of about 30 minutes where you can already see the amazing splendour of Daisetsuzan. And so we went. Along the way, we saw some sika deers crossing a small pond.

The Midoridake (green mountain) has an elevation of 2,019 meters. Surprisingly, it was already snowing in the mountain.

Finally, we reached the trail point where we can see the beautiful mountainous landscape of Daisetsuzan. Although the autumn leaves were already blown away by the strong winds, the  view of the enormous snow-capped mountains is still breathtaking.

There is one thing though that we need to remember. Daisetsuzan is home for the Ussuri brown bear or the black grizzly. And at this time, the bears are actively looking for food to prepare for their long hibernation in winter. So when we saw the paw prints of what we recognized as belonging to a bear, we immediately went down.

It might not be a good day for us to see the autumn leaves, but the sight of the paw prints from the elusive brown bear is already a goldmine for me.