How are you everybody?
It is a beautiful day in fall here at Aso.
The leaves started turning yellow or red, and it looks really colorful.
As you know, Aso Nakadake volcano had an eruption about 2 weeks ago.
The eruption occurred only on that day but still my family or friends living in outside of Japan asks if we are safe.
Yes we are safe! And we are living as usual:) Tourism is also no problem,only the exception is that you cannot see the crater right now.
The most famous and largest eruption of Aso in history is called ASO-4 and it occurred about 90,000 years ago.
They think that eruption was as bad as it might have killed all the people living in Kyushu island!!
You can still see a lot of topography around Aso area which you can tell how the eruption was enormous.
I visited Yusui-kyo at Oguni town which is about 45 min drive to north from Michi no Eki Aso.
Yusui (遊水) means playing water, or you can play in the water, Kyo(峡)means gorge or valley.
In the summer, my kids played in the river. The rocks under the water are so flat and slippery as you can enjoy natural water slider. Water is shallow, the way water running down looked a little different from what I used to see.
Please take a look at this photo, have you ever seen such a funny looking river rock?
This is made by the pyroclastic flow of ASO-4.
The distance from Mt. Aso to the Yusui-kyo is about 30 km.
It is just amazing to see the rocks made by the enormous eruption of Mt. Aso at this far area.
Here is the sign of Aso geopark.
When the pyroclastic flow cool down, they get firm and cracks show up in hexagonal or sometimes in pentagonal shape. That is the the columnar joints. Here at Yusui-kyo, you can see the cross-sectional surface of the columnar joints everywhere.
And these black spots in the rocks are the small lava rocks from ASO-4. It is so cool!!
It is a beautiful season for hiking, but it is a shame that you cannot enjoy the hiking around crater for safety reason.
(Not only Nakadake & Takadake, Kishima and Eboshi is also prohibited to have hiking right now at level 3.)
I can recommend the hiking at Yusui-kyo with watching all these beautiful autumn colors and interesting landform.
There are a couple of nice waterfalls along the river, you can see all of them in 1 ~1.5 hours:) In the middle of day, you might be able to see some rainbow around the falls!
Enjoy the fall in Aso!
*Please note that Yusui-kyo will be closed in Winter quater ( from Dec. to Mar.)
Kana
