'SATOYAMA' SEASON IN!

Mt. Karita is located in Obuse town, a next-door town of my city. It's hight is only 786m. I have once climbed it a few years ago. This is the second time.

There are two variation routes to the top. I chose an easy one, from Suberi-yama, because the other one, from Gansho-in, is told to be more tough. Gansho-in is well known for its cealing picture drawn by a famous Japanese artist, Katsushika HOKUSAI.

It took just an hour from the entry to the top. There were not so many flowers yet, but only yellow small flowers of Dankobai (Lindera obutsiloba) were full blooming.

Along the walking path, I found some leaves of "dog's tooth violets". Their flowers tell us that spring has come. They tend to root in dark place and their color of beautiful violet stand out very well in such a place. We, Japanese , tend to love such flowers. Anyway, they may bloom elegant flowers a couple of weeks later.

There is an Azumaya, bower, on the top and I saw all the maountains of Hokushin Gogaku in the line. They were very beautiful. Unfortunately North Alps were hardly seen because of hazing atmosphere then.

Good luck.

The Chikuma river

Recently I have got a new machine. It's a bicycle. The kind of cross-bike, like a mountain bike. Amazingly, it has passed just 20 years since I had been using a bicycle everyday when I was a high school student.

This sunday afternoon I decided to take a wandering by my bike somewhere. I like running along the river so I chosed a course along Chikuma river for Obuse.

At first I left home for the Murayama bridge, which is one of the two bridges between Suzaka and Nagano city. It took just 10 minutes.

Then, after I got there, the direction was for the south. Some rivers in Japan are well maintenanced as there are roads on the riversides. It's partly true for the Chikuma but somewhere I often met unpaved parts of roads. My bike isn't appropriate to run on such roads. I had to draw it along me and walk.

In Obuse, it was very good roads, of course paved, and so that I didn't take even a short walk with my bike. I saw an athlete of wheelchair marathon running in high speed. I found a series of owner-system cherry trees along the road with some signboad including the owner names on them. You can enjoy beutiful cherry blossoms in April there.

My aim had been Obuse when I started but I changed my mind there. I made up my mind to go to the Tategahana bridge in Nakano city and go over it and come back along the opposite riverside. It took about an hour by the time I got there. It may sound very long but it's because I took a couple of rests on the way.

Soon after I crossed the bridge I had to go down the steps to the riverside. There was a small JR station named Tategahana. A few kilo meters ahead I ran together with a lot of cars running on R18 and then I could come back to the riverside road. There I could enjoy seeing the view of many mountains around the towns including Mt. IIzuna, Neko-dake, Karita-san, Shiga highland and Kosha-san. Those are ones I ever climbed so far. I recorded a movie panning from IIzuna to Kosha-san here. It was rather simple road this side so I ran and ran along.

By the time I got to the sleeve of the Murayama bridge it has been about two hours since the starting. At last I found lots of things and views I have never met and never choiced so far driving a car. This short trip told me about lots of things. I felt somewhat tired when I got home but it was kind of comfy. I recommend this course if you want to run near Nagano city.