At the weekend, we went camping with some friends at Hirayu Onsen near Takayama. What a beautiful location in amongst the trees and high mountains, in particular Norikura. While the others kept busy around the camping area (visiting the nearby waterfall and foot bath), two of us set off up Norikura Skyline.
We started riding from the camping ground which was pretty tough in the strong sun as the first 4.5km to the Skyline gate were pretty steep.
Once we reached Hirayu Pass, we started up the Skyline after getting a warning from the gatekeeper to look out for bears. Luckily we didn't meet any, but I would like to see a real bear sometime.
As we climbed higher, snow from the winter still remained on the side of the road, although with the recent sunny weather it probably won't last much longer.
We finally made it to Tatamidaira - the top of the highest road in Japan at some 2,700meters. It was a tough climb up, but the keeping our goal to reach the top in mind helped us complete the challenge.
At the top, the snow wall was at least 5 meters high. Many others had come up by bus to go skiing or boarding.
I hope the people who came up after us saw the MEC sign.
The ride down was a lot quicker, but the first section we were in the clouds so it was rather cold - the total opposite extreme from the ride up. Once out of the cloud, we soon warmed up again as we raced down at about 65km/hour. We could easily go faster, but I don't trust my brakes and the other side of the guard strings (not rails) is a good 200m straight drop at many points.
Back at the camp site, we were right on time for the BBQ followed by a campfire.
No comments:
Post a Comment