A Rainy End - part 2

2 weekends to move everything important out of my most recent old apartment would have been plenty of time, but 2 weekends to move all the important stuff out and paint what scenery I could - while the scenery was still scenic…
That’s not a lot of time.

I sat in my half emptied older apartment looking up at the sky for signs of improvement; I didn’t see any.
I didn’t want to let the rain ruin my last few convenient opportunities to convene with nature, but painting in the rain always turns out between bad and terribly.
I also dislike getting my shoes wet.

I don’t know why I didn’t think to go hiking sooner. I lived at the base of a famous volcano, and even years before, I’d always wanted to climb it.

I left as soon as that thought occured to me, I brought my bag of paint/ easel/ etc., just in case the weather had a change of heart - which it didn’t.

I left my watch behind - it being Sunday/ unimportant.

I got myself to the base of the hiking trail at around 2:30 and I speed walked/ jogged most of the way up.
My old job kept me at a desk for 9 hours a day, so I must admit being ever so slightly winded by this manner of ascent. The mist and fog kept it cooler than it otherwise would have been, made it all cool and mysterious looking too.

Nearer to the top there was an orange colored river, which smelt of sulphur. It was a volcano after all.
There was also a shelter that people could hide in - in case of eruption.
The higher up I got, the thicker the fog became. There were also fewer and fewer trees, and the boulders skewn here and there became larger.

About 20 minutes from the crater there was a sign and a rope and an abrupt end to the path, which were all designed to keep a person from going any higher up.
I could hardly imagine anyone climbing up and up and up for so long, just to turn back after finding one set of “Extremely Hazardous” signs.

I don’t know for sure what time I got to the tippity top; I’d left my watch at home, and the fog obscured the view the sky - making it difficult to ascess the time of day.
All the way up, I wondered what the crater would look like, but the fog made anything more than 8 feet in any direction undiscernable. I stopped where the black rocks dropped down sharply and the white gasses rose up softly.

The limited visibility had been a concern of mine when I left the path behind to find the crater, but I made a pitiful attempt to glance around occassionally/ to remember the sillouettes of the boulders I passed and really, I had hardly any trouble getting back to the path.
But I was tired then, so I went down the path slowly.

I tried to remind myself to walk faster - because it was probably approaching 5pm, but at that point I liked walking slowly.

I sat down for a minute outside of the eruption shelter and a guy came out of the hut that was attached to it.

He told me it was 6:25 (about 40 minutes til dark).
I would have known that if I had worn my watch.
I might have walked back down through all that length of forest with my bike light, …if I hadn’t left it in my other back pack,

The only thing I could do to make it back to my car before the path became dark and invisible was to run all the way down the rest of the mountain.

I had been cycling fairly regularly for the better part of 4 years, but I’d hardly run at all over the past year. I was tired, and it was hard to see all the rocks, sticks, roots and that one little bit of mudslide that were blocking the way but I managed to do it, + find my car without feeling around for it.

I was a little late to work that Monday, as I could bearly make it down the stairs from my apartment, and I had an awful time walking for the whole week after though. A lot of people found that funny.
Running most of the way down Mt. Asama is an impressive thing to many people it seems.