Hakusan Super Rindo Forest Road & Shirakawa-go
Trip Start
Jul 26, 2008
1
32
48
Trip End
May 17, 2013
Hakusan, Chubu, Japan
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
This time, I rented a car at Gifu City, because my car doesn't have an ETC card reader and a car navigation system, which are essential to take the express way (because of a large discount) and to drive to unfamiliar places. I chose the Mazda car rental dealer and it was 5 minutes' walk from the station. I booked a car for 11:00, but they prepared the car for us just after we had arrived there at 10:15. So we were able to hit the road in five minutes. The first destination was Shirakawa-go, a small village in the mountainside. Both of us had been to the village. Especially, that would be the fourth time for my mom to visit the village. However, because the village was located at the starting point of the Hakusan Super Rindo Forest Road and it seemed that the village was worth visiting repeatedly, we decided to stop at the village for a short time.
We took the Shirakawa Highway from Shokawa to Shirakwa-go. Unexpectedly, we found a beautiful lake on the highway. Actually, I didn't know even the name of the lake at that time, but the lake was so beautiful that I tried to pull over the car a few times on the way. Eventually, I couldn't stop the car, but I managed to stop by the lake on our way back to Gifu City. Anyway, we reached Shirakawago two and a half hours after we left Gifu City.
Shirakawago has been designated as a UNESCO's World Heritage Site for its traditional thatched farmhouses. Interestingly, the great buildings were built by commoners of the village, not by religious groups nor authorities. Shirakwago was terribly crowded with tourists on the day. In my first visit, it was mid-winter and the village was covered with heavy snow. For that reason, I didn't see many people in the village, but this time, the number of tourists was far larger than I had expected. We had a bit difficulty even in finding a parking space. We stayed there for half an hour and visited only the Kandas' house. The house was built by the second son of the Wadas, the most powerful family of the village. It was large enough to spend 20 minutes in, but the inside of the house was not so different from that of the Wadas' house. The house was four-story building of which the first floor was used for living and the others were for sericulture. On our way back to the parking lot, we picked up sweets for my aunt and colleagues of my office in a souvenir shop and finally left the village for the forest road.
Shirakawa-go Website
http://shirakawa-go.org/english/index.html
Kandas' House Website (only in Japanese)
http://kandahouse.web.fc2.com/frame.html
Hakusan is a 2,707 meter-high mountain located in Ishikawa Prefecture and is said to be one of the three most beautiful mountains of Japan along with Mt. Fuji and Mt. Tateyama. The area surrounding the mountain is designated as a national park and the forest road is a 33-kms-long drive way in order to enjoy great nature views. The downsides are its toll costing JPY 3,150 (JPY 2,540 for a light car) and limited business hours (you cannot stay somewhere on the road overnight.), so I was not certain whether the forest road was worth driving down. To be honest, however, I am too lazy to climb a mountain, but very eager to get great views from high mountains. For that reason, the forest road seemed perfect for me. Another reason to choose the forest road was my old mom. She is too weak to walk a long distance, to say nothing of mountain-climbing. The forest road looked easy on her.
It was quite difficult to find the starting point of the road and I almost passed it by without realizing the direction board. After I paid the toll at the gate of Shirakawa, the drive way was just winding uphill for a while. Our first stop was Sanpoiwa Parking Lot and a view from up there was nothing. If you don't spare time to go up to the top of Mt. Sanpoiwa, you don't have to stop by there. Then we stopped at Toganokidai Observation Deck, which was totally nothing. The third stop was Kunimi Observation Deck at the height of 1,100 m above the sea. Observation deck was only two minutes' walk from its parking lot and a view from there was superb and worth trying. There seems several waterfalls along the road, and the most magnificent is 86-meters- high Fukube Waterfall, You may see the waterfall even from the parking lot, but can get a better view from its observatory just in front. My mom was too tired to get out of the car, but she enjoyed a view from the car. The last stop was Ubagataki Waterfall and Oyadani Onsen Hot Spring, the main attraction of the forest road. You can enjoy bathing in the hot spring with a view of the waterfall just in front of your eyes. Unfortunately, they are not so accessible. It takes 15 minutes at least to trek from the parking lot to the waterfall and another 20 minutes to come back. There are so many steps that small kids and the elderlies should skip the waterfall. When I reached there, nobody was in the hot spring, but according to some blogs, the hot spring seems very popular. I also didn't take a bath, because I kept my mom waiting in the car, but Ubagataki, meaning "old lady's hair", gave me a comfort after a hard trek. After leaving the waterfall, we headed straight back to Gifu City except for taking a few pictures of Lake Miboro.
English Brochure of the Hakusan Super Rindo Forest Road
http://hakusan-rindo.jp/contents/gaikoku/english.pdf
Shirakawa-go (my blog entry)
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/misocutlet/11/1295209148/tpod.html
It's about my first visit at Shirakawa-go in January 2007.
