Two months ago I had bought a baby-carrier backpack from Mont Bell to be able to enjoy the beautiful natural surroundings of Karuizawa with the whole family and we had tried it on one occasion. I was quite satisfied with it: Hannah looked comfortable riding in it, the buckled harness would keep her safely even when I would do a total flip-over and the load was not too heavy on my shoulders, plus it had good storage space beneath the seat. So I decided it was time for her hiking-debut "Yama-girl" as they are called in Japanese, to describe young gals going into the woods in proper yet fashionable outfit adapted from the old saying "fashion follows function". We have a small hill very close by by the form of a bowler hat, rather steep sides, but more or less flat on the top, and with only about 600 meters in hight it would mean a hike through the woods with a splendid look-out at the top. I had hiked it once before from the east side which turned out to be an asphalted road zig-zagging up the side to be used by the forest workers. This time I chose the south-west path which would go through the forest on a more gentle slope. In winter this area seems to be the "hang-out" for the local monkey group (and I had actually spotted them before) but we didn't see any bigger species including bears that also make some rare appearances. There actually was a notice at the entrance of the trail with warning about bears and an updated notice about the "appearance" of one only one week earlier. This seemed to be the strongest alert over "sighting" and "foot prints". So I was rather happy that we didn't set out in too early time and had a bell to make some noise since our baby proved "noisy" only for small part of the trip.
The Yama-girl all dressed up at home
Ready to "hit" the trail, a bit nervously chewing on her toy
The one who is really "hitting" the trail with a load of about 13 kg on the back
Nice forest trail, fresh green and even fresher air after a few days of heavy rain because of a Taifun
All this was too much for our fresh Yama-girl; after less than 30 min, she felt asleep swinging on my back
A few flowers still blooming
As well as some trees
The rather uneasy part of the trail, planks with non-slip surfaces and slats across them above the ground, but some parts rotten and sunken away, where we had to tip-toe forward.
After a bit more than an hour we had finally reached the top, covering about 600 meter in height difference. Hannah was finally waking up from the fresh breeze at the top
My two Yama-girls, one very seasoned and one just doing her first steps experiences regarding Nature
We had some Bento lunch, stretching our strained legs and relaxing for a while before starting the descent
Where we again met some delicate flowers
And again someone felt asleep
Deep in Dreams
On our way home we had a well-earned coffee-break with cake, 3 pieces for the 3 of us:
I had half a piece from Hannah for carrying her
My wife had half a piece to pass on to her later as Cassis-Latte
And Hanna had her usual energy drink: Oolong tea
No comments:
Post a Comment