After taking a couple days break, I decided to head back up to North but instead of going back to Miyagi (Sendai area) and renting a car from Sendai, I went to Yamagata instead, taking an early training leaving from Takasaki Station in Gunma prefecture (which was my home base for this trip).
I arrived in Yamagata city sometime I think around 1000 AM but was also charged with picking up a heavy load of sake favorites for family (as Yamagata is one of the best prefectures for sake) so did not get out of Yamagata area until around 1130. After picking up rental at Toyota-rent-a-car which is above the best and my goto place for car rental, I started the drive up to Zao.
I want to say it took me about another 2.5 hours to arrive in which there is a large parking lot and mostly walkable trails without having to do any strenuous hikes.
About: The Zaō Mountains (蔵王連峰, Zaō Renpō), commonly called Mount Zaō, are a complex cluster of stratovolcanoes on the border between Yamagata Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture in Japan. The central volcano of the group includes several lava domes and a tuff cone, Goshiki-dake, which contains a crater lake named “Okama” (御釜). Also known as the “Five Color Pond” (五色沼, goshiki numa) because it changes color depending on the weather, it lies in a crater formed by a volcanic eruption in the 1720s. The lake is 360 meters (1,200 ft) in diameter and 60 m (200 ft) deep, and is one of the main tourist attractions in the area. (Sourced from Wikipedia)
The Zaozan (or Zaosan) volcano group, the most active of northern Honshu, consists of a complex cluster of stratovolcanoes straddling the Pacific Ocean-Japan Sea divide. The Pleistocene Ryuzan volcano forms the western group (Nishi-Zao), and Byobu and Fubo volcanoes form the southern group (Minami-Zao). The complex was constructed over granitic basement rocks as high as 1500 m and thus has a relatively small volume. The 7 km3 Zaozan volcano proper forms the central group (Chuo-Zao), a complex topped by several lava domes and the Goshikidake tuff cone, aligned along a NW-SE trend. Several episodes of edifice collapse produced debris avalanches during the Pleistocene. Goshikidake contains the active Okama crater has been the source of most of the frequent historical eruptions, which date back to the 8th century CE. (Source Global Volcanism Program)
For more detail on this hike see “I’ve Explored” @volcanicjapan
Toyota Rent-a-car – https://rent.toyota.co.jp/eng/
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