Norikura National Park

October is one of the best months in Japan because of the spectacular yellow, orange and red autumn colours that can be seen amongst the changing trees. What better way to observe this fiery brilliance than by hiking through the national parks in Norikura? So a few weekend ago, that’s what we did!

A group of us set out nice and early and headed for Mt Norikura, a dormant volcano in Gifu prefecture. As we drove further north, we headed away from the last wisps of summer in Gifu city, through the gorgeous autumn scenery, and eventually up the mountain, where winter had well and truly arrived.

The weather wasn’t as pleasant as the views on the first day, so instead of hiking to the summit we decided to do some of the waterfall hikes instead. Due to the lack of signage (or more likely our lack of Japanese), we took what we thought was the long walk to the most popular waterfalls. Instead of heading right, up the well-trodden mountain path, we of course went left and started climbing our way up a ski slope. None of us thought it unusual when the track disappeared, or when we saw no people around and just large ski signs indicating black and blue runs behind us. We could always hear the waterfall to our right, so we weren’t too worried, that was until the noise of crashing water started disappearing… As we deliberated whether to turn back around or to continue, we came upon another carpark, except there was a huge chain blocking access to the path we happened to be walking along, whoops! Somehow, we had made our way to the other carpark where the short walk to the waterfalls began! This path was of course perfectly marked out with wooden steps and signs every few hundred metres. The Sanbondaki waterfalls consist of 3 separate waterfalls that flow in to one river. They were beautiful, and not just because we hiked 2 hours to get there!

Can you see all 3 waterfalls? The all flow into the one river just below us.

We finally found the right path! Yay!

The following day we awoke to clear blue skies and were stoked that we chose today to walk to the summit of the volcano! After just making the early bus, we were driven up the windy, narrow road to the level of the clouds where the hiking began. The bus took us past trees covered in stunning autumn coloured leaves, but these eventually started to disappear and instead made way to a barren ice land shrouded in fog. Everyone laughed when I said to pack warm clothing, they weren’t laughing anymore!

The beautiful autumn weather!

Mitch half frozen to death, definitely not laughing anymore.

The howling wind brought the temperature down below zero and covered whatever was still standing in icicles (this included us)! Unfortunately, the weather was terrible in the clouds and we never made it to the point that we were above them. Instead of the clear views of other mountains from the summit, we couldn’t see more than 20m and were covered in ice! Granted, the frozen tori gate at the top looked pretty cool in this weather!

Check out how the icicles have formed in the wind off the back of the Torii gate!

Despite the atrocious weather, it was still a really fun and memorable trip. We might just have to do it again, but maybe in summer instead!