Juniko Lakes & Refresh Village

Camping! Well not really...we stayed in plush Cabins with a full kitchen, shower, japanese (western style toilet ) with all the bells and buttons on the side. This little gem in the woods is located on the West coast of Aomori in Juniko Lakes.  The Cabins are called Refresh Village, which have endless hiking trails leading right out your back door. Theses cabins where very clean and sleep up to 6 adults and are great for families with small children such as us.  Great place to get away and enjoy the lush woods and lakes, plus the cabins will keep you dry in the rainy season. There is even a place called the Japan Canyon, apparently named after the US Grand Canyon close by.  After a day of cruising through single path trails along the lakes, we headed to the coast for a short cycle and an Onsen before making the drive back to Misawa.  Great weekend! All pictures taken with Canon G10 and Iphone 4 using Instagram. 

WeSpa Onsen..saltwater tub

Last Hike/Snowboarding of the season.

Yesterday was a long journey to 3 defined peaks in the Southern Hakkoda's.  We started from Suiren-numa a small pull off/ pond and headed south towards Lake Towada. Our first ascent was Komagamine which lead us to the big guy Kushigamine.  From there we started to have great visibility and choose a different descent down towards Sarukura-onsen.  On our way back we passed Komagamine again and headed towards Sarakuradake which then led us to the Onsen.  WHooooo what a day.  Here are our ridiculous stats for the day: 10 miles traveled, over 3400 vertical feet climbed and over 3900 vertical feet descent.  Pretty good way to spend my Birthday plus it's snowboarding in May!  The snow conditions where are good as it gets for spring, prefect corn snow on all aspects. 

Check out our route in Red.

Start- Suiren-numa

A couple of skiers in the distance hiking Kushigamine

Kushigamine Summit

Kushigamine face

Finish- Sarukura-Onsen

Surfing, Post 3-11-11

Surfing again, feels really good. Although the water is still super cold the air temps have started to warm up a bit.  I couldn't have picked a better day to go surfing, having not been in months. Nice offshore winds and easy waist to chest high waves.  A great way to ease into surfing again. The local break has changed quit a bit as you can no longer drive all the way to the water as the road that use to be there was wash-out by the tsunami. In the 2nd picture, you can see the water line from the dead trees, pretty wild. Overall stoked to be in the water again.