D3 over Tsuchiyu pass into the fog

Route: Urabandai - Tsuchiyu - Fukushima
Bicycle: 80 km
Train: 300 km
Average speed: 15.6 km/h 
Total ascent: 1143 m
Riding time: 5:09 h
Weather: cloudy and very dense fog on the descent, 16C

I had so many options how to return. One easy one would have been to just ride down to Aizu Wakamatsu, spend a few hours in an onsen right besides the station (I was there in a previous visit to the city) and then take the train back to Tokyo. But the weather seemed good enough to instead attempt to go to Fukushima. Even to Fukushima there were different options available. The maximum option would have been to ride over the Asama Bandai skyline, which probably had starting of koyo. But there were intermediate options, and I finally took one of those. 

I didn't start very early, which would have been needed for the full option due to the long climbing. After stocking up on food and drinks at the local conbini (and only conbini in the area), I took a left turn and was out in the mountains with small lakes below. 

These lakes formed after the eruption of Mt. Bandai volcano about a century ago and now in this region there are a few big lakes and a lot of small ones. 

This is what I got as a view of the inner crater of Mt. Bandai... not much: 

This is how it should look like ... but not today. I will need to come back, which I plan to do anyway. The region seemed very nice, and there are a lot of accomodation options in Urabandai. In winter it is a ski region, but fishing seems to be also very well loved activity as well as hiking. Cycling also was relatively popular. Specially on the first day I met a bunch of cyclists (all coming downhill) in the awful rain. 

I continued on my small road, which however did have some traffic, so I never felt totally alone and cam across a small food stall that sold local vegetables and other produce, but also offered some nice warm udon soups. Which took care of the lunch. 

While eating lunch I studied my options. From here I had still the option to go mainly downhill to Koriyama or to go uphill towards Fukushima. After a lot of thinking I decided to take the shorter of the two uphill versions, just riding to the entrance of the Asama Bandai skyline but not riding it itself, as time would not have been sufficient. 

It was a little bit too early for koyo. Probably the following week would have been good. Probably actually up on the Asama skyline it was already good for koyo... but not enough time for me. 

However when I started the descent towards Fukushima on the other side very quickly the fog moved in. 

And what a fog! It was so dense that one had to ride very carefully. It also doesn't help to wear glasses, which just seemed to attract every single water droplet. On the upper slopes I was still mixing with cars, not a lot but some. Farther down, the road separated: A road only for cars (I think it was illegal to cross the tunnels by bike/foot) and the old road, now essentially only for bicycles. Maybe on a day with nice weather some cars and probably a lot of motorcycles would use it as well to do some sightseeing... but not so today. In the fog this road didn't feel very safe. Not because of the road itself, which was good quality, but because there was just absolutely no one. No other cyclist was crazy enough to ride there and the cars and motorbikes were all on the main road. So it felt like if something would happen, it could take a day or two before someone would even find me. 

But nothing happened. No bear, no deer, no other kind of incident. 

Getting further down the fog lifted and I came to Tsuchiyu onsen. A small onsen village that was recommended by the owner of the pension I stayed. I took the very first onsen at the entrance of the village. They had a nice big outdoor pool. Not really with a view, but somehow one could see that all around there were trees. After this refreshing and cleaning bath (I was rather dirty due to the wet roads), it was downhill from there all the way to the station.

I had a ticket reserved for around 19:00, but I was at the station about 2 hours earlier. I packed the bike and there was a Shinkansen just a few minutes after I managed to pack everything which had some unreserved seats. I couldnt change to reserved seats as everything was taken, but there were enough unreserved seats that I even found a place in the last row to store the bike behind. 

D2 Around Lake Hibara

Route: Goshikinuma and Lake Hibara
Bicycle: 34 km
Hiking: 5,5 km
Total ascent: 452 
Average speed: 13.1 km/h
Riding time: 3 h
Weather: cloudy but no rain, 16 C

The day started with more rain, but by the time I was ready to leave around 10 o’clock it had finally stopped raining. Originally, I wanted to ride up to Bandai skyline, but with the threat of rain, a day out with a long descent on wet roads didn’t sound like an intelligent thing to do. Instead I decided to do just a round around the lake here by my pension. Before that, however I went to the local famous spot of several small ponds, that were created by the eruption of Mount Bandai in the Meiji period. These ponds are famous for their color variation.

The hike took about an hour and a half and then I started my ride around the lake with my sight on an onsen at the lakeshore already closed back to where I’m staying. That onsen is in a big hotel complex and on this long weekend, only open publicly until 15:00. But I planned it apparently to perfection and arrived there a bit before 2 in the afternoon so could enjoy a good soak in the hot water while looking into the forest over the lake.

My pension also allows stocks to stay. Which is very rare in Japan. Originally, I thought that was the owner would have probably several dogs, but apparently they don’t have any. Today in the morning I saw One guest was a dog who was very well behaved. The dog. This evening, a family of three adult adults and one dog checked in and this dog is extremely badly behaved and their owners don’t seem to have any idea how to control it. During dinner he was walking around in the dinner area and the pension owner needed to ask them to put the dock on a leash. But even then they put him on a leash, but didn’t attach the leash to anything so still the dog was still running around. Now I’m sitting in my room writing the notes of today and in the neighboring room, they are trying to manage the dog shouting at him that he shall not do this or that, and in all this, the dog already pissed into the common area. I think the pension owners are now trying to negotiate that the dog must sleep in the car. 

The other guests in my pension are two men who came here to fish. Which seems to be a very well loved pass-time in this area. There are a lot of small boats on the lake and really a lot of cars who had brought their boats with them.

D1 - up to Urabandai

Route: Koriyama - Inawashiro - Urabandai
Bicycle: 64 km
Train: 250 km
Total ascent: 862 m
Average speed: 16,4 km/h
Riding time: 3:56 h
Weather: rain all day, cold 11C 

For this weekend originally I had two reservations. One in the Hakuba area and the other one in Fukushima Prefecture. A few days ago, I looked at the weather forecast and it seemed that the weather in Fukushima was going to be reasonable while in Hakuba it seemed to rain. I have no idea what actually happened in Hakuba, but in Fukushima, it was definitely raining.

But now I was committed to this three day weekend in the Urabandai region. In Tokyo, I managed to get to the Shinkansen just before the rain started. When I got off the train in Koriyama, the rain hadn’t started yet here, but it would start soon after setting off towards Inawashiro. 

I had come up the same road a few years ago when I stayed in Aizuwakamatsu on a still relatively hot September weekend. Back then, I had a lovely view of the lake. This time the lake was grey and the imposing mountains around shredded in rain clouds. 

I stopped along the lake for lunch and they even had a small fire going, but my shoes and socks were so soaked that even putting them right in front of the fire, it made no difference for getting them dry. I am actually writing this block post on the following day and the socks are still wet although they have been hanging to dry for over 24 hours. Luckily, I was able to dry my shoes though with a strategic use of newspapers. Actually, a very interesting newspaper. It seems that instead of getting the first female Prime Minister, Japan will be getting the third non-LDP Prime Minister in a few days. But I needed something to dry my shoes.

After lunch while riding uphill I made a quick stop at a fruit stand, selling local apples and peaches.