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.