Day 7 - Hiking In The Juniko Twelve Lakes Forest Area - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
Day 7 - Hiking In The Juniko Twelve Lakes Forest Area - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
Yesterday, we arrived at a forested area called Juniko Lakes.
Juniko literally means “Twelve Lakes.”
The area offers well maintained hiking trails that take you to a beautiful group of small lakes and ponds, located within the Shirakami-Sanchi UNESCO World Heritage Site in Aomori Prefecture.
Despite the name, there are actually 33 lakes, not 12.
The name comes from the fact that 12 of them can be seen from the nearby Mt. Okuzure lookout.
The Shirakami-Sanchi forest is one of the world’s largest remaining virgin beech forests.
The deep blue and emerald mountain lakes are surrounded by this lush old growth virgin forest.
What makes some of the lakes in Juniko famous is their cobalt blue waters, clear visibility, and submerged beech trees.
The colors of the lakes shift depending on how cloudy the day is, how much light is reflected and the time of day.
We set aside today for taking a nature walk and photographing the Juniko Lakes area.
Our hotel is just a short bus ride or walk from the center of this beautiful area.
We ate a delicious and healthy breakfast that included many dishes made with local apples and even cubes of raw Aloe Vera plants, which I ate with yogurt and apple sauce.
After breakfast, we took the 9:25am bus to one of the trailheads and then began walking.
The bus dropped us at the visitor information center deep in the forest, where you could buy local products, a packed lunch or souvenirs.
We bought some dried persimmons and two beautiful Nebuta festival handkerchiefs.
The Shirakami-Sanchi Mountains is the collective name for a vast mountainous region spanning 130,000 hectares across Aomori Prefecture.
This includes many villages that we have walked through, or will be staying at, like Nishimeya Village, Hachigasawa Town, Fukaura Town, Fujisato Town, Happo Town, and Noshiro City.
Of this area, 16,971 hectares of primeval beech forest was registered as a World Heritage Site in December 1993.
Most of the area registered as a World Heritage Site is protected as a nature conservation area.
The wildlife in this area includes the Japanese serow, (a goat-antelope with short, sharp horns, long, coarse hair, and a beard, native to the forested mountain slopes of Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Japan), the dormouse, the black woodpecker, and the golden eagle, and are protected species.
The geology of Shirakami-Sanchi is based on granite formed in the Cretaceous period (around 90 million years ago), and is composed of sedimentary rocks (tuff, mudstone, sandstone) from around 20 million to 12 million years ago.
We could see bands of rocks in the distant mountain range, formed by magma rising from deep underground, such as rhyolite and quartz diorite that run through it.
The terrain is comprised of a dense forest with deep valleys and steeply sloping valley walls, which result in numerous large waterfalls and excellent scenery.
There are a few rivers that flow through the Shirakami-Sanchi and a series of mountains ranging in elevation from 1,000 to 1,200 meters.
Shirakami-Sanchi has barely been affected by human activity through the ages, and it remains the world's largest, almost pure, virgin beech forest.
These natural beech forests are also home to a wide variety of plants, including pine, spruce, Japanese walnut, chestnuts, maples and oaks, among many other types of trees.
The lakes and ponds are beautiful.
Some are really turquoise, while others are more green.
Near one lake, we stopped to rest and drink from a pure spring waterfall, reputed to be one of the 100 purest mineral waters in Japan.
It looked like Autumn had not yet arrived in the region, and most of the deciduous trees have not started to change the colors of their leaves.
It felt so nice to walk around the lakes, shaded by the canopy of trees, while listening to the leaves rustling under our feet, to the wind blowing through the trees.
These unseen energies should be respected and honored.
We need to celebrate the magic of nature, to respect the land.
It is so important to our souls to reconnect with nature, to listen to the whispers of the wind, to listen to the songs of the rivers, to feel the spirit in ALL things.
By 1:00 PM, it seemed like our hike through the forest and lakes was too short. We didn’t want to return to our hotel too soon, so we took another detour to see another small lake, and hopefully have a small lunch at a soba restaurant situated right in front of the small lake.
I wasn’t sure if the restaurant would be open, but the walk was scenic and it was indeed open, and serving homemade soba noodles.
We filled our cups with tea and sat to enjoy the atmosphere of the place.
We talked about how the natural parks in Japan are still really beautiful, so calm and peaceful, so scenic and well kept.
We felt rejuvenated after today’s walk.
This kind of nature walking makes up for all of the walking that we’ve been doing on noisy city streets by car dealerships.
We returned to our hotel by the late afternoon.
We soaked in the public bath and relaxed until dinner.
Our dinner tonight was another delicious 11-course kaiseki meal, a little less elaborate than yesterday’s, but still beautifully prepared and delicious.
With love and light,
Tali
Today’s walk - 8 km.
Total walked to date - 104 km.
