A Monster Outing

There they stood, like the hordes of Sauron. Like the countless armies of boundless Mallorea....

Cut!

My fantasy series' are getting somewhat mixed up, what??

Let me start again. Think of the innumerable hordes of Sauron (for the uninitiated, refer to The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King), picture them as they ready to march off to battle. Now open said image in GIMP (or Photoshop, if you will), remove Orodruin (Mount Doom) from the picture, transfer the horde, as is, to the Ice age and freeze the hordes till they start to resemble Popsicles.

Isn't this what you'd come up with??

Would they look like this?

The summit is totally covered with snow monsters (Juhyou).


Where did these monsters come from??

The Aomori fir trees that cover the peak of the mountain are constantly layered with hoarfrost until they lose any semblance of trees and turn into something straight out of a fantasy (or horror) movie.

On a clear day like this, the snow monsters are a truly amazing sight.

I should mention here, that this was our second trip to Zao in three weeks. The last time we were there, we met up with this blizzard who had descended from Siberia, and who simply wouldn't go away. Visibility was about 8 -10 feet.

Pretty sad, isn't it?

And I badgered and badgered the other half, till he gave in, and we drove down again, and took our chances with the weather. "What if visibility is bad, or if the snow has melted?" asked the OH. But I was determined to go to Zao, and off we went. And took a chance on the weather!

This time around, it was a gloriously clear day. And (at 5°C) warm to boot! When we got to the top, the long drive o'er hill and dale was so worth it.

I could see shutterbugs right at the summit. Of course, they probably didn't get there with two kids in tow.

There were these huge, white, bizzare forms all around us.

As we took the cable-car down to the foot of the mountain, I caught glimpses of skiers and snowboarders weaving among these giant, mysterious, creatures.

All I could think of was an army of fantasy monsters, marching inexorably towards civilizaiton, gobbling up ski enthusiasts as they went by.