Mostly Japanese Mountains: The Bandai/Urabandai area

S'up cave lovers? I want to share with you some of the places around Mt. Bandai in Fukushima. As I said in the last post, aside from the mountain, there are a lot of recreational things to do here.

The volcanic eruption greatly interrupted the drainage of the area and created numerous lakes and marshes. These first few pictures are of the Goshiki Numa, "5-colored Marsh", (五色沼). There is a fairly flat walking trail of about 4~5 km through it. Along the way there is a restaurant, an ice cream stand, a souvenir shop, and rental boats. Great fun for kids from eight to eighty!

Some of the watery sights in the Goshiki Numa.

There are some well-fed, well-coordinated Koi here.

The next place I'd like to share is the Matsubara Campground on Lake Hibara. The Matsubara Campground is a great place. It faces the mountain across the lake and the views of Bandai are just incredible. It also offers a front-row seat to the annual fireworks display held over the lake. (Unfortunately, that display has been on hold since the COVID era began.) The campground has swimming, tenting, cabins, boats, canoes, kayaks, fishing, bicycles, hiking, cooking facilities, water, a bath, great bathrooms . . . and they pick you up in a boat to bring you to the campground! Since there are no cars it offers a more serene experience than the usual car-camping lollapalooza.

The owner is a descendant of one of the 4 people that survived the eruption in 1888 and likes to show old pictures and tell the story.

Their website it here:

http://www.urabandai-camp.com/

Note the slide and the rope swing on the left. The water is so clean. I dropped my glasses in about 10 feet of water but was able to spot them from the surface. There are lots of fish to see, too.

Since I'm a walker, even after climbing the mountain, I was happy to have the trail along the lake to perambulate. There were some spots along the way that were just so beautiful I couldn't help but linger to look.