Thick mist and strong winds up on Mount Moiwa

The eerie sight that greeted my mother and I

after we boarded the Mo-risu car to go along

the final stage of our ascent up Mount Moiwa

This photo gives a sense of how misty it was 

up atop Mount Moiwa -- but no sense 

of how ultra windy it also was up there!

The visibility was way better in the lower reaches

of the 531 meter high mountain

When my friends asked, I tell them how fortunate my mother and I were with regards to the weather during our most recent trip to Hokkaido.  After all, the temperatures were on the pleasant side throughout our vacation and it only rained around lunchtime one day (and by the time we finished our lunch, there no longer was any precipitation coming down) and while we were on a bus on another day (and yes, it had stopped raining by the time we got to that afternoon's destination!).

However, I have to say that I wish that it was way less foggy and windy the evening that my mother and I went up Mount Moiwa (not by hiking, mind, but a combination of regular "ropeway" and the innovative Mori-su Cars designed to maximisze visibility for its passengers).

So foggy was it that I could see nothing of the views that had been depicted in a number of photos erected at the summit to help people identify what they'd be able to have seen on days of way clearer visibility.  And so windy was it up there that my mother felt in danger of slipping and falling, if not being outright blown away, while she posed for a picture in that area!

I think that if the view from Mount Moiwa had been the top Hokkaido sight that I'd want to be behold, I'd have been super distraught.  In this case though, I took it as a lesson that weather is not something we humans can control -- and that it often is the case that we should enjoy whatever weather Mother Nature has decided to bestow us! ;)