Mt. Aso

Temperatures have finally cooled and the hikes around the area started up again. It's been a while since I went on one that I almost forgot about it this morning. Mt. Aso is an active volcano on Kyushu located near the Kuju Mountains . We started our hike at about 930 and made it up and down in about 5 hours. The trail was a little more difficult than any I had been on before with little vegetation and lots of rocks that made for some interesting climbing. The top peak was 1592 meters and the active crater was right next to it. The mountains we climbed were in the middle of the biggest caldera in the world formed a long time ago. What once was the center of a large active volcano is now home to several thousand people. The trail we took didn't get us to close to the active peak but it made for good pictures