The snowshoeing trip that didn't work out

For the President's Day holiday we wanted to go snowshoeing - seems simple enough, but it wasn't. 

To make a long story short, we thought we had found a great place to go - Senjojiki Cirque. The website had beautiful pictures (see above). The location was only about 2.5 hours from Camp Zama. And there were reasonable accommodations available in the town nearby, Komagane. But the one thing we could never positively identify was an exact location to rent snow shoes. 

We left on Sunday after church and arrived in Komagane well before dark. We thought we could drive around town and find a snow shoe rental place - but we found nothing at all! Finally we came across a tourist information center. Dad went inside to chat with them and came back with good news and bad news. Good news first - he found out where they rented snow shoes - yeah! Bad news - they don't rent them until later in the Spring when the risk of avalanche is lessened - well, shoot!

We decided we would still take the tram ride up to the top of the cirque the next day to see the beautiful mountains and take in the view. To get to the tram you take a 30 minute bus ride up a narrow, steep mountain road. It was a scary drive, but the views were awesome. However, the higher we went, the more cloud cover we were in. By the time we reached the tram station we couldn't see too much of a view and it was lightly snowing. 

When we got out at the top and it was completely covered in clouds. It was also a bit windy and with the light snow, pretty much a white out! We hung out inside the coffee shop for a few hours hoping the clouds would clear. They never did! I think it would have been a spectacular view if they had. But sadly, no snowshoeing and no views. 

We had to console ourselves on the drive back to Camp Zama with the perfectly clear view of a lovely, snow covered Mt. Fuji (which we had for most of the way home).

THIS WAS OUR VISION:


THIS WAS OUR REALITY:





And this was when the weather "broke" a bit and we could see some of the mountain behind us.
(notice dad is head and shoulders ABOVE the torii gate - lots of snow up there!)

So we ate yummy foods (Sauce Katsu, a local specialty and Beef curry, a bit of an oddity)





This was the view from our hotel in Komagane on Sunday evening. The clouds are covering the big mountains in the background, which is where we went on the bus and the ropeway the next day.


View from the front of the tram on the way down the mountain



I took these pics through the bus window on the ride down.




Notice it was clear in the valley when we came down and the big mountain tops on the other side of the valley were in sunshine! It really is a great place - we need to go back when the weather is better!

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