Saturday 25 August 2012

Shirakami Sanchi - Anmon Falls

From Tsugaru Pass we back tracked to Anmon Falls in the deep Shirakami Sanchi. The falls are officially only open in the summer and autumn months as far as I know, but the fact the postcards there have the iced river means there must be some winter access.
  The waterfalls are a few kilometers from the main road and it takes hiking through the beech tree forest to get there.  There were a couple of bus tours there, but rather bizarrely they didn't go to the waterfalls - and were content with doing a 1km loop walk... It seems like such a waste to come all the way to Anmon Falls and not actually see the waterfalls...   
It was a beautiful walk, quite hilly but very easy walking.  Hiro's mother had her pedometre on and the days walking was just over 10kms.
The road back to Anmon Falls from Tsugaru Pass
Local wildlife.
Shirakami Beech Trees
Anmon no Taki 1
Anmon no taki 2
The only fish we saw - an iwana - a kind of trout.
Hiro's father spotted it. It must be hereditary - Hiro who can see nothing
at distance without glasses and avoids night driving where possible can manage
to spot a fish from tens of metres away...
The river
There are walking boards along the river, the old path alongside the river is much to
dangerous in many parts.  It shows consideration to include overtaking / passing lanes!
This is where we walked from the first little pink dot around the two green loops,
to the large pink dot and up to the end of the orange line on the right which has
the waterfall marked on it.  The orange line between the pink dots goes alongside the river
but was shut because the path had become untrafficable.  We returned via the green
line (without the loops) which was quite hilly.
Trees trees and more trees
 
And more 
And more
Beautiful Rocks
A solar powered camera / counter to monitor the number of people going in and
along the walking path.
Anmon Falls visitor centre is between Hirosaki and the
Tsugaru pass (in the above post).

 Details about getting there logistics with a map:  http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3790.html

4 comments:

SomedaysSarah said...

I have another with super power fish spotting powers! Interesting that the solar camera is to count people, in Canada there to count other critters!

Cecilia said...

It's very possible you are right for this case to. My information came from Hiro's parents who could quite easily have misunderstood. What they said made sense, as it would be a place where people could be counted accurately, but I didn't verify it.

Rurousha said...

That fish thing? It's telepathy, and it's Very Powerful. I have this theory that the fish actually call them. "Hirooo-san! Here I am! Catch me!"

That's a lot of trees. Beautiful.

Cecilia said...

:) Telepathy would explain it!

It's really very beautiful there. I have ambitions to go back to the Akita side - but the season is quite limited - not spring or winter & a 4WD vehicle would help.