The about 3.7km trail has three highlight landmarks: Taisho Pond, Tashiro Pond, and Kappa Bridge, and most visitors who are following the easy trail will be visiting these three places in that order. I didn’t really find Kappa Bridge very interesting, but that’s the end point of the easy trail and also where you can find a number of resorts, restaurants, and shops. In short, Kappa Bridge was a fairly congested point for crowds, and the bus terminal itself is just a few minutes’ walk further away.
Pictures!
You’ve been warned: you’re entering bear territory! There were many local hikers about, and all of them had little bear bells attached to their backpacks. It made for a humorous scene with the constant twinkling sounds from these bells whenever they were nearby.Though it had been raining since yesterday, the path itself was still quite easy and free of mud. Sections of the trail are also paved with gravel or wooden boardwalks. The trail is almost entirely flat, with just one or two short segments that require going up steps.Unusual tree along the trail.Ring if you see bears? But just about every visitor was ringing this bell for fun when they walked past it!Can’t get lost: just follow the signs.Tashiro marshland.Tashiro Pond, the small pond surrounded by wetland. Lovely view here. The viewing area is actually fairly small and at the end of a short path from a fork. But most visitors don’t stay long, so you can linger a while to get better pictures.The other end of Tashiro Pond that you can observe from the small viewing area.Continuing on the trail!Walking towards Hotakabashi Bridge, with the Azusa River on the left.Azusa River from the bridge.Hotakabashi Bridge is passable by vehicular traffic, but vehicles move slowly so there is little danger to visitors.Continuing along the Azusa River. It’s possible to make your way down to the embankment.Mountain range in the near distance. Likely because of the recent rain, there were plenty of low-level clouds. There was on-and-off drizzling throughout the 3 hours Matt and I spent on the trail.Very pleasantly cool weather today, with temperatures at around 20°C.Water was crystal clear.The area is probably exploding with colors in autumn.
The entire 3.7km trek took us about 2 hours, and we walked really slowly and stopped frequently to take pictures, catch our breath, and make silly jokes about the weather, the trail, and bears. The 3.5 hours of time the day tour had allocated was thus more than sufficient for us. And if you’re up to it, you can venture past the visitor information center and take another 30 minutes or so to get to Myōjin First Pond. We didn’t do that this time, on account that the rain was pretty much making everything harder than it should have been.
Tomorrow’s day trip will be to Gujo Hachiman, Takayama, and Shirakawa-go. So, more notes to follow very soon!
