Trip 3: Day 10 - Yumoto Onsen & Lake Karikomi

It was raining lightly but consistently in Yumoto Onsen when we awoke quite late (8am) and consumed a massive breakfast before jumping in the outdoor onsen for our morning soak. Finally ready for the day, we chucked on our rain jackets and pack covers and out we went into the wet. The plan was to take it very easy today given the wet conditions. There was a 16km round-trip hike on offer in the hills surrounding Yumoto, but given the rain we opted to do the first 2.5kms to Lake Karikomi as a there-and-back-again type deal. I think 5kms between trips to the onsen is enough to ask of anyone.

It turned out to be quite a rough trail, especially given damage by recent typhoon Hagibis. With the constant rain, the rocks were slick and the onsen manager quite earnestly warned us to be very, very careful! We were dutifully careful, with only one slip recorded.

The trail started at the source of the entire resort's onsen water - the geothermal springs from whence the water, steam and sulphur emerged from the ground.

Capped geothermal springs supplying the entire resort with onsen water

From here it was up, up, up the side of the valley en-route to the lake. At the start the trail was easy enough, but it started to get rougher the higher we went into the valley.

The trail started easy enough 

But then degenerated the further we went

Despite some treacherous sections, we reached the 2.2km mark without too much effort and started to descend the last 300m down to the lake itself. This was through some pretty dense pine forest with huge rocks and plenty of typhoon damage. Luckily there were some (undamaged) stairs to help us, but we still made slow progress due to the rain.

The last 300m down to the lake were slow going, despite some stairs

Despite the slow progress we were soon down and finally looked upon Lake Karikomi. I won't say that it wasn't worth the effort, but it did seem little pay-off for all our exertions.

Lake Karikomi in all it's glory

We consumed some chocolate, peanut bars and mandarin jubes (3 of the 4 major food groups) and were soon making our way back to town. Here I not only ruined the gps route I'd just recorded of the walk (and so the relive video shows only half the trip), but we found and consumed what could possibly be the worst ramen in Japan.

Bellies full of regret, we took a short walk around town looking for coffee, and soon retired to the ryokan for yet another soak. This was duly followed by a beer during ryokan happy hour, and then an enormous, highly delicious dinner.

A little tapitty-tap-tap at this laptop, and it's high time we had a post-dinner soak and then bed.
Peace out.

Here is the relive video that I completely fucked, showing one half of the hike: