Sado - Donden Mountain Water cleaning

On the northern side of Sado, near the Ryotsu Port, there are some larger mountains and a few beautiful hiking trails. One of the mountains has a mountain station with a café, a small souvenir shop, and a campground. Today, we meet Ike-San again here to clean a pond on the mountain with iron. Just like last time, we open the hand warmers and pour their contents into a bottle with citric acid and water. We have lunch at the mountain station and then make our way up the mountain. As we ascend, the plants spread out horizontally rather than growing vertically. Bamboo forms a carpet that almost resembles a meadow, and even the cedar trees, which usually grow straight up, are low and branched here. It takes about half an hour to reach the summit, but it's quite challenging since it's all uphill. Unfortunately, it's very cloudy on this day, and instead of the undoubtedly beautiful view of the valley, all we see is a white wall of clouds. However, it's still about the same distance to the pond, which is located next to an emergency shelter. Fortunately, this time it's partially downhill. Once we arrive, we pour the brown broth into the pond. From the emergency shelter, we can briefly look down into the valley before a wall of clouds obstructs our view again. The return trip proves to be even more challenging as the path back to the summit is steeper than the way up. Additionally, the ground is very wet, and in some places, the gravel path is loose, causing us to slip constantly. Nonetheless, we all manage to make it back to the car in one piece, and on the way back, we stop at a souvenir shop in Ryotsu. There, my avocado gets a new buddy, a small, chubby Toki, who now sits next to it on the shelf in our room.