One word for today: MONKEYS!! But not yet.
We decided to take one more dip in the onsen at Higashi Ishikawa and delay our departure for Kamikochi in the morning a bit in order to give the rain a chance to pass over, and our strategy appeared to work—we never suffered more than a sprinkling throughout the day’s activities. A bus trip back to Matsumoto Station and a regional train up into the foothills of the Hida Mountains brought us to Hirayu Onsen, where we caught another bus that took us up into Chiba-Sangaku National Park and the Kamikochi Wetlands Natural Preserve.
Under cool and cloudy skies, we started our walk from the picturesque Taisho-Ike, a pond affording excellent views of the volcanic Mt. Yake and Mt. Hotaka (with its remnant glacier). There are developed hiking paths to both peaks, and huts, but our itinerary tracked the glacial blue-green waters of the Azusa River as it meandered between broad, stony banks, spread out in lush marshes, and then rebraided itself into its course again. The path was pristinely maintained with kilometers of cedar boardwalks bridging over the marshier areas and charming runs of stepping-stumps in shorter sections, so it was easy, fast hiking in perfect conditions. We stopped for a quick snack of pork croquettes at Kappa-bashi, a bridge named for a Japanese trickster water-sprite whose concave head is filled with water it can’t lose without losing its powers, thus providing the humans it tries to beguile with some leverage to extract better behavior (kappas also apparently love cucumbers, so people throw cucumbers off bridges like this one to buy safe passage at night or in bad weather).
We hiked another mile upriver to Myojin pond, which has a pretty little temple with nice mountain views as well as a charming cafe, where we crossed the river to return on the other bank back to the Kamikochi visitors’ center. It was at the Myojin Bridge that we saw the monkeys—a troop of macaques, better known as Snow Monkeys (minus the snow in this season), playing with their babies, grooming each other, and generally lolling about the river banks in the nice weather. Although we were careful to give them a wide berth, they seemed unbothered by us and passed quite closely a couple of times, so we got some nice pictures.
After all of the monkey business, we realized we needed to pick up the pace to make our bus to Fukuji Onsen and our evening’s accommodation, so we hustled the 2 miles back to Kamikochi visitor’s center, picked up our luggage from storage and some road snacks from the excellent gift shop, and caught our bus on time.
The slopes of the volcanic Hida mountains are positively riddled with hot springs, making this area a big destination for spa-seekers. Fukuji onsen seems to be a spa town that’s already seen its heyday; it was sleepy and felt a bit abandoned at this time of year, and many of the buildings were empty or run down. The Ryokan Sansui, however, was cozy and welcoming, with the friendliest staff of the whole trip, good hot baths, and excellent food. We loved their big, open lounge where we sat and drank whisky after dinner, and Cheryl and Ruth set up long chains of domino-type dolls to knock over around the decorative fire pit. A final dip in the natural outside hot spring brought a lovely conclusion to my favorite day of hiking on the trip.
The Rookery 