Hakuba

---

---

Hakuba

Hakuba is a beautiful village beneath the Hakuba mountain ranges, and is an all-year round place for trekking, skiing and climbing the numerous 9,500 foot mountains. It reminds me of a little European ski village. There is no snow at this time of year, but its a great time to explore the area because the tourists are few and the scenery is great.

I stayed in a small family-run pension close to one of the main ski lifts of the village. It is run by the parents of a lovely Japanese lady, Makiko, who stays there with her 3 year old son Uto (quite possibly the cutest little Japanese boy ever). I was the only guest at the time so it really felt like I was just staying with a friendly family, rather than in a hotel.

Every night Makiko's mother would cook me a nice homemade dinner of traditional Japanese food grown in the area, and every day her father would drop me off and pick me up in the car whenever I needed transport. He is a well-known artist in the local area, and paints the local wiildflowers in water colours and colour pencils - the reception and dining areas of the guesthouse are adorned with his paintings.

After arriving on the first day, I visited Happo-o-ne ski resort, within which is Mt Karamatsu at 8,843 feet. It took a gondola and 2 more ski lifts to reach the start of the trekking trails, where you can also see the start of the downhill run course used in the 1998 Winter Olympics held in Nagano (the prefecture that Hakuba is a part of).

The trail was no serious climb, but still fairly rocky and had some decent uphill sections. It took me just over an hour to cover the 6km and reach one of the highlights of the trek, a beautiful crystal clear pond, Happo Pond, on one of the upper summits of the mountain. I continued on for another half hour, but as the last ski lift was going down at 4.30 i needed to turn around to get back in time.

The next day I visited Tsugaike Natural Park, an alpine marshland with walkways built through allowing you to observe the rare alpine flora without disturbing the natural environment. Before I left the house, Makiko's dad gave me an umbrella and a bell to borrow. I was mildly alarmed to learn that the bell is to deter bears, which are quite common in the area.

It took 3 gondolas to reach the park, and being over 1850 metres above sea level, and raining, twas a bit chilly. I spent about 90 minutes exploring, then ventured back down the mountain to check my email and make some bookings for the next part of my trip. Thankfully the only bear I saw on that day was the stuffed one in the main hut at the end of the trail.

---

Photos

Bear!
Thankfully this is the only bear I encountered while exploring Tsugaike Natural Park. I like to think that is because of my trusty anti-bear bell :-)