Obon D3 this time the “real” waterfall

Route: Karuizawa - Shiraito - Onioshidashi - Karuizawa
Bicycle: 52 km
Hiking: 5km
Total ascent: 1116 m
Average speed:12.4 km/h
Riding time:4:13 h
Weather: Sunny , some clouds, no rain (!) and not too hot

After the attempt yesterday that finished in a very different waterfall caused by a heavy downpour accompanied by lightning, today, the revenge ride. So again up to the way, crossing where the toll road to the official Shiraito waterfall starts. When I arrived on top, I checked the bus schedule and there was going to be a bus in a few minutes, so I decided to take the bus to the waterfall instead of hiking there. Being this a long weekend in the summer, they were a lot of other people aiming for the same goal. This meant that getting to the tollbooth took quite some time. But luckily, once the toll booth was behind it wasn’t too slow. The bus station is actually very close to the waterfall.

This waterfall is a major tourist attraction, even attracting a lot of foreign visitors. Probably aided by the fact that there’s relatively frequent buses from Karuizawa. It is a nice waterfall, but I would say that the homonymous waterfall close to Fuji is nicer.

To get back to my bicycle, I walked through the forest a nice hiking pass of about 3.5 kilometers. While ride around the waterfall, there’s an absolute craziness of tourist, most Japanese and foreigners, shortly after the waterfall I was pretty much alone and a nice Forest. The sun filtered through the three leaves creating a nice atmosphere. I had forgotten my bear bell on the bicycle, So that I played requiems of Fauré. A few days later on YouTube, I saw a film explaining some ideas how to keep bears away, and one of the ideas was to speak loudly. So probably it would have been better to put some podcast on rather than classical music. But it created a nice atmosphere in the forest.

Back at the road, Junction I had lunch in the same place as yesterday, before continuing to the second highlight of the day: Onioshidashi, literally: monster pushing out. Getting there by car would’ve meant yet another toll road and much less descending in ascending, but again this toll road was closed to bicycles. But I managed to ride about half of the distance through a very tranquil vacation house area with a wide road and absolutely no cars.

The Onioshidashi Park is a volcanic park on the slopes of Mount Asama. This mountain once upon a time was a Volcano as impressive as Mount Fuji. Until it suffered a catastrophic volcanic eruption and lost huge parts of itself. It’s still a pretty tall mountain, but the lava stones thrown around give testimony to its destructive powers.

Obon D2 Waterfall

Route: up to the entrance to Shiraito waterfall
Bicycle: 40 km
Total ascent: 819 m
Average speed: 11,4 km/h
Riding time: 3:31 h
Weather: nice until it wasn’t, not too hot, 25C

In Japan there are relatively frequently touristic toll roads that either go to some specific place or have especially nice views. Mostly these roads are closed to bicycles. I have no idea why and I’m pretty annoyed by it.Also around Karuizawa there is one of those toll roads, and it is the only way to get to Shiraito waterfall a famous local attraction. So as a cyclist, the only way is to walk from the entrance of the toll road through the forest to the waterfall. That was the idea for today. But I ended up with a very different waterfall.

The day started nice, not too hot. My last stop prior to ascending the mountain from where to walk to the waterfall was at Hoshino. The upmarket leisure area with a wedding church, an onsen and a lot of overpriced coffeeshops, bakeries, and restaurants along a small stream. It is a nice area, but also not very Japanese. As the rest of Karuizawa. I had hoped that I could stock up at a vending machine with a drink before cycling up the mountain, but that area is so upmarket that a mere vending machine is not in existence. Luckily, I found one a little bit further up in an onsen where I went later on on my way back.

Replenished with enough fluids, I started cycling uphill on a road with a little bit too much car traffic for my liking, but luckily most of the road had two lanes uphill. And so I arrived at the entrance to the toll road where a restaurant and a public toilet was located. Also, here are I simply wanted to stock up on more drinks before walking to the waterfall, but before I could start my hike, it started raining. Initially just a few drops, but after a minute, the floodgates of heaven opened. So, instead of walking to the waterfall, I took refuge in the restaurant and had lunch, still hoping that the weather would get better and allow me to get to the waterfall either by bus or walking. But the downpour continued for the next hour. Intermittently I checked on the weather app if the cloud would move away, and it seemed it would, but the time never seemed to arrive. I paid and waited a little bit longer outside already checking what the alternatives were to get down from that mountain.  Luckily there were actually alternatives as there is a bus stop going down to the train station. The buses are not very frequent, maybe once per hour. While I was still waiting and checking the weather app at a point the rain became a little bit lighter so I decided to get down.

This picture wasn’t even taken at the worst moment.

Slowly and safely, I made it down, keeping surprisingly dry under my rain jacket, at least the upper body. Legs and up to the waist soaked in rain and dirt.

I was uncertain if I really wanted to go to the onsen because it would mean to get into the wet clothes again after the relaxing bath. But once I was close to the onsen down in Karuizawa it had stopped raining. It probably still rained on the mountain. So I when for my soak. 

Previously when I was in Karuizawa the only public onsen I knew was the one built by Kuma Kengo in Hoshino area.  So I was curious to find out about a other public onsen actually, not too far away: Sengataki Onsen  

The answer is quite nice was too big outdoor pools one of them with a roof. What was creepy though was that I discovered a hidden camera that was pointing at one of the outside pools. I alerted the lady who was cleaning and checking on the onsen and she got rid of the camera and called the police. I hope they can investigate who put that camera there and that the onsen will not have negative impact. 

To get back to my hotel, I took a slightly different route through yet another vacation house area in the forest. Karuizawa is also strangely full of churches.It at least feels like they’re more churches than temples and shrines.

Obon D1 towards fresh air

Route: Yokokawa - Usui pass - Karuizawa
Bicycle: 28 km 
Train: 140 km
Total ascent: 999 m
Average speed: 8,7 km/h (not helped by all the walking I did)
Riding time: 3:15 h
Weather: Sunny and kind of warm but tolerable in the mountains and nice in Karuizawa (at 940 m elevation) 33-28 C 

While you’re up this year is baking in the heat with heat wave upon heat wave, in Japan, it is surprisingly fresh this year. I did write to the office until quite late in July and then again this week it became fresh enough to be able to cycle to work without melting away. So I thought that I would give it a try to have a long weekend away. Since several weeks, I’m kind of feeling that I didn’t take enough vacation this year and really need some time off. Next Tuesday is a local holiday anyway (mountain day), so how better to celebrate by doing a long weekend in the mountains.

Thus, on Thursday, I set out with the help of ChatGPT to check where around Tokyo it would be the best temperature. Initially I had thought about going to Nozawa onsen, A village have been already several times in Nagano prefecture. But the problem is getting there because unfortunately, there are no local trains from Tokyo that go towards Nagano city. You need to take the Shinkansen, which obviously was sold out weeks ago. After all, it is Obon, a traditional holiday in Japan, where many people take off maybe visit the mountains or traditionally visit the grave of their family. By pure luck I found one room at an agreeable price in Karuizawa. Karuizawa is the classical high class summer vacation spot of Tokyo elite. It was “discovered” by an Anglican missionary in 1886. From there, it quickly grew into the favorite spot for the rich and cultured elite of Tokyo to spend their summers. His own summer house has been well maintained and is now open to visitors.

As a exemplary missionary, he obviously also built a church:

Karuizawa is a very peculiar village. It doesn’t feel Japanese.I don’t really know what isn’t Japanese about it but the summer houses are scattered through the forest and it kind of feels like an ideal summer retreat from a 19th century novel.

Quite centrally in the village is also this famous pond:

To get here, I came by train first to Takasaki and then Yokokawa which is the furthest that the normal train line that once existed between the Tokyo area and Karuizawa is still running. Although this week, it was surprisingly fresh in Tokyo, it actually got hotter now. So I did decide against cycling up from Takasaki and took the train as far as possible, just to the base of the climb.

At the station, I went through my summer cycling routine, soaking my T-shirt, completely in water and holding my head under cold flowing water before starting the ride.

There are various roads over the pass towards Nagano prefecture from highway to small winding road over Usui pass. This road is famous for the train bridge that supposedly is evoking glasses:

As the train line no longer runs, one can now walk on the line and through the train tunnels. I have to admit a cycled until the bridge, also it was officially prohibited. But there were only very few pedestrians so really no issue. At the bridge, however there were many more pedestrians and crucially a few guards who insisted that I walk. 

The train road now ends at an abandon station. From there, I had to carry the bicycle over some stairs down to the road. That road is extremely curvy. Quite similar to this tree:

A few meters behind the pass, I found a vending machine and got some cold drinks and had one onigiri in the shade. Until here I had only written about 12 km and it would have been only another 2 km down to my hotel at the station. But I saw a tourist map on that pass and it called out a shrine that wasn’t too far and perfectly reachable from where I was.

A very nice road through the vacation house forest did lead me with many more curves to the shrine. When I first had lunch, some soba noodles, before visiting the actual shrine. The shrine itself to me seemed pretty normal. But it must be quite well liked, because it had a huge shrine shop. 

This was actually a shrine where you kind of needed to walk through the shop to get to the small devotional shrines to pray for the health of your dog or car.