Today (December 16th) I climbed Nabeyatoge Pass before dawn as well,
but before I get to that story.
I was also doing a morning climb at Nabeyatoge Pass on December 6th.
That day the timing was a bit later, and while climbing I
crossed right through sunrise.
My front light is a VOLT 800, and the image above shows
the light leaning against a guardrail at the starting point
and when I breathed out into the beam's range,
it looked like white smoke coming out! That's what this picture is.
Depending on the slope's direction and condition,
there are lots of zones with virtually no fallen leaves,
but in the really bad spots it looks like this.
Fallen leaves aside, when temperatures drop below freezing,
the bridges on the Osaka side have "no geothermal heat + non-asphalt pavement"
so they freeze thin and get extremely slippery and dangerous.
In years without warm winters, patches of eternal shade on the roadside
can still have snow lingering into spring, and even though the road surface is clean now,
the Nabeyatoge descent on the Osaka side is dangerous when roads freeze,
so it's safer for Osaka residents not to choose it as the return route from Koya-san (Mount Koya).
For now the temperature hasn't dropped enough to freeze the road surface.
The summit. The sun's fully up now.
That day I had a Deuter backpack with
a garbage bag, a rag, flowers, and sakaki leaves in it,
and I cleaned the Jizou statue's shrine.
There was quite a bit of plastic twine that had been used to tie the stems of previously-offered flowers
scattered around, so I put it in the garbage bag and brought it back with me.
Oh, it looks really nice now.
↑This is the before shot by the way
I also polished the stainless steel flower holder
as much as I could with a wet rag.
I filled a long bottle with water
for the water to put in the flower holder and for the rag.
That was the story from 10 days ago...
This is how it looked as of December 16th.
I expected the flowers to be wilted by now, but the sakaki leaves aside,
they were looking quite fresh.
In front of the Jizou is a candle holder that can hold up to 6 candles.
When I was cleaning, there were coins around the Jizou, and
ones that had turned so black they'd merged with the soil aside,
coins in relatively good condition (clean enough to go through an ATM)
I placed on top of the candle holder since there's no donation box,
but they all disappeared without a trace.
It was probably an animal.
Addendum: I've gotten a few comments,
and yes, that's right—there's a beast out there that ignores aluminum
but picks out copper and nickel coins.
If it were the local person taking care of this shrine I wouldn't mind
（they'd probably use the money to buy the next flowers),
but that's hardly likely.
Also, since I forgot to write this earlier, let me add it now—
both times in this article I had a camera mounted on my handlebar,
but I didn't encounter any wildlife, so I got zero footage in the "deer seeker" sense.
Heh heh... I know, I know,
of course the wildlife will only show up when I don't have the camera...? (paranoia)
Going back about 15 minutes in the timeline to an image from the summit.
The front light that day was a VOLT 6000.
When you illuminate the white sign in the image with 6000 lumens,
the image of the reflected sign gets captured on the smartphone screen,
creating something like a ghost photograph.
In the image above, the reflected light
overlaps the sign so you can't see it, but
if you change the angle by rotating the smartphone horizontally,
something like a spirit emerges from the sign.
！？
Please take another look
Did you understand?
but before I get to that story.
I was also doing a morning climb at Nabeyatoge Pass on December 6th.
That day the timing was a bit later, and while climbing I
crossed right through sunrise.
My front light is a VOLT 800, and the image above shows
the light leaning against a guardrail at the starting point
and when I breathed out into the beam's range,
it looked like white smoke coming out! That's what this picture is.
Depending on the slope's direction and condition,
there are lots of zones with virtually no fallen leaves,
but in the really bad spots it looks like this.
Fallen leaves aside, when temperatures drop below freezing,
the bridges on the Osaka side have "no geothermal heat + non-asphalt pavement"
so they freeze thin and get extremely slippery and dangerous.
In years without warm winters, patches of eternal shade on the roadside
can still have snow lingering into spring, and even though the road surface is clean now,
the Nabeyatoge descent on the Osaka side is dangerous when roads freeze,
so it's safer for Osaka residents not to choose it as the return route from Koya-san (Mount Koya).
For now the temperature hasn't dropped enough to freeze the road surface.
The summit. The sun's fully up now.
That day I had a Deuter backpack with
a garbage bag, a rag, flowers, and sakaki leaves in it,
and I cleaned the Jizou statue's shrine.
There was quite a bit of plastic twine that had been used to tie the stems of previously-offered flowers
scattered around, so I put it in the garbage bag and brought it back with me.
Oh, it looks really nice now.
↑This is the before shot by the way
I also polished the stainless steel flower holder
as much as I could with a wet rag.
I filled a long bottle with water
for the water to put in the flower holder and for the rag.
That was the story from 10 days ago...
This is how it looked as of December 16th.
I expected the flowers to be wilted by now, but the sakaki leaves aside,
they were looking quite fresh.
In front of the Jizou is a candle holder that can hold up to 6 candles.
When I was cleaning, there were coins around the Jizou, and
ones that had turned so black they'd merged with the soil aside,
coins in relatively good condition (clean enough to go through an ATM)
I placed on top of the candle holder since there's no donation box,
but they all disappeared without a trace.
It was probably an animal.
Addendum: I've gotten a few comments,
and yes, that's right—there's a beast out there that ignores aluminum
but picks out copper and nickel coins.
If it were the local person taking care of this shrine I wouldn't mind
（they'd probably use the money to buy the next flowers),
but that's hardly likely.
Also, since I forgot to write this earlier, let me add it now—
both times in this article I had a camera mounted on my handlebar,
but I didn't encounter any wildlife, so I got zero footage in the "deer seeker" sense.
Heh heh... I know, I know,
of course the wildlife will only show up when I don't have the camera...? (paranoia)
Going back about 15 minutes in the timeline to an image from the summit.
The front light that day was a VOLT 6000.
When you illuminate the white sign in the image with 6000 lumens,
the image of the reflected sign gets captured on the smartphone screen,
creating something like a ghost photograph.
In the image above, the reflected light
overlaps the sign so you can't see it, but
if you change the angle by rotating the smartphone horizontally,
something like a spirit emerges from the sign.
！？
Please take another look
Did you understand?