Showing posts with label Mizunashi Gorge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mizunashi Gorge. Show all posts

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Videos of the Mizunashi Gorge

And here are the videos that provide a better context and the sensation of sound to the blog experience.  I took a lot of videos of waterfalls for my father, who's an avid waterfall-catcher...on film.

Here is some evidence of last winter's landslide.

There were many small waterfalls like this one along our hike.

Here's a dramatic waterfall on the mountainside.
Last Friday, the water was shooting up a bit.

Here is a medium-sized waterfall that was big enough to supply some cool air as we hiked past it.

Another small waterfall

Here the rapids look like glacial ice melt.

This is the large waterfall that supplied the very comfortable cool breeze.

This is where that big waterfall met the icy blue water of the gorge.

Behind the greenery is a man-made waterfall.

Yes, this is snow.
But that is someone else's truck with a key left inside.

Take another look at the waterfall and the snow.

Here is the pile of packed snow as solid as ice stacked up next to my colleagues.

We were lucky that what remained of the arch did not fall on us.

Yes, that's evaporating mist coming out from under the snow.

It's difficult to capture the size of the mountain in my little tiny camera.

After seeing the great snow bridge, we turned around to take another look at what used to be a smaller snow bridge.

Near the end of our walk, we followed a trail down to the river gorge.

There's another waterfall from the other side of the gorge making its way to the river.

Two of our group took the plunge while I was filming this.
To maintain their privacy, I filmed in the opposite direction.

Staring at the rapids can sometimes be quite mesmerizing.

Photos of the Mizunashi Gorge

Today I had the opportunity to visit the Mizunashi Gorge again, so this posting will be photos followed by some short descriptions.

The road ended here, so we parked our car.  It's the one in the back with the trunk open.  I'm facing towards the direction of our university and the small town of Urasa.

Here are my fellow summer IEP instructors walking up the trail.

This is a dragonfly.

A dramatic waterfall lies ahead.

This is a grasshopper.

This is me in front of a waterfall that brought down the temperature by at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
Our hiking group hung out here for a while to enjoy the sight, the sound, and the feel.

That waterfall ends here.

The best stuff is still ahead.

What's this?  
The videos in the next posting will provide a better idea.

A branch emerges out of packed snow.

Underneath the packed snow, new life is budding from the ground.  
Evaporating mist wafts out air much cooler than that waterfall.

The netting failed to contain the mountain.
Nature wins again!

The side of this mountain makes for good desktop wallpaper.

The famous snow bridge!
It was about 88 degrees Fahrenheit at the start of the trail.
It's closer to 80 degrees here.
But it's July!

The snow bridge in its mountainous context.

Walking over a little snow hill to get a closer look of the snow bridge.

Can we trust this man-made tunnel to walk under the snow bridge?

We enter.

From one of the tunnel's windows, I grab this shot of the snow bridge.
But one of my colleagues discovers that, in the darkness, the tunnel's left wall has fallen apart.
So we exit.

The snow bridge has another tunnel.

This is a butterfly.
The other side of its wings are a beautiful cerulean blue.
When it flutters around it keeps that blue color, but when it lands on stones, it disappears in its camouflage.

I get a chance to dip my feet in the glacial icy blue water.
It was about as cold as Autumn's wading pool.

This should last a little longer than my footprints.

Flowers

Can you spot the snake?
It's a mamushi--a poisonous snake that isn't afraid to attack.
You will need to spend a week in the hospital if bitten.

All in all, this isn't bad for the first weekend back in Japan.