Northern Honshu (Part 2): Towada-Hachimantai National Park

Our Fourth of July road trip continued further north as we drove up to Towada-Hachimantai National Park. What a worthwhile trip! After navigating through rain and admiring tree-covered mountains on our drive, we were greeted by an overlook offering widespread vistas of Japan's third deepest lake (it must be one of the nation's most stunning too), Lake Towada. Next we continued our pursuit of a riverside boardwalk trail along Oirase Stream, which turned out to be one of the most picturesque hikes we've ever done. The river changed in depth, speed and turbulence all while we strolled along. Oh and we happened upon several waterfalls without even leaving the trail! We will allow the pictures to do the rest of the talking, but needless to say we were quite pleased with our 959 mile jaunt to the northern portion of our home island. Thank you again, Japan, for sharing your natural beauty with us!

P.S. - In case you were as apprehensive as Jennifer about the idea of hiking in the rain again (see July 4 post from last year), we did not encounter any Japanese mountain leeches this time. Whew!

On the road again!

Mommy and son checking out the goods at a local store adjacent to the lookout.



Lake Towada!

A serene lake shore.

 

And so our river walk begins!

The first waterfall was only about 1km into the trail!

Beautiful...

...from every angle!

Several bridges like this one crossed over the stream to continue the trail.

Even the bridge was growing as part of the forest.

 

Outdoorsman training starts early.

The young Japanese man who took this photo for us spoke beautiful English and was from Kyoto. "Where did you learn English?", we asked. "High school.", he said. Waaayyyy better than our high school Spanish!

 

Surprise! Another waterfall!