Last night, I picked up my papa at Takasaki station! He’s working in Osaka for three weeks so he came up to spend the weekend with me! I spent Friday afternoon getting cheese and a membership at Costco, as well as grabbing burgers with S. S actually got to meet my dad as well when I dropped him off at the train station ha. This morning we left at 7:30 am to head up to Oze National Park for a bit of hiking and camping. The last leg of the drive was quite beautiful with all the flowers blooming: irises and lupines. Because the temperature is colder there, there were more types of flowers than I normally see.

We parked at the Oshimizu entrance for 500 yen a day. I had to pay a lady who emerged from the omiyage shop and tell her we were leaving tomorrow. It seemed this was a popular spot for overnighters to park. I used the Hatomachitoge Pass entrance last time so I knew nothing about this route. My dad and I both had our overnight packs with sleeping bags, food, and a tent on our backs as we started the upward sloping gravel road. I knew our first stretch to the campsite would take about 3 hours and be 7 km long. What I was surprised to find out was that about half of it was along this stupid gravel road! We were surrounded by tons of butterflies and chirping cicadas, but still! Finally we past the first hut/rest stop area and the trail actually became a wooded trail tucked along a river. So much nicer.

Sadly the trail turned into some steep switchbacks. I had to take lots of short breaks to catch my breath. The trail was lined with beautiful pink flowering trees and at one point we could drink fresh mountain water. Cold and delish! We finally made it to the top of the pass and realized we had just covered a 600 m difference in elevation from our start point! With our packs! My papa last went backpacking 30 years ago and I’ve only done it once in college, but we did it! From 1180 m to 1762 m. We stopped here for our lunch break before pressing on.

We finally made it down to the lake! It was gorgeous! There was a bit of a small pebbled beach and sandy beach. After snapping some photos, we walked the last 20 minute stretch to our campsite area. I stopped at the visitor center to get another Oze map in English plus some other pamphlets. They also told us where to go to check in. It was a little tricky with their lack of English and the lack of signage. We wandered a bit in a circle before I saw the sign Hute in katakana on one of the buildings. Managed to fill out the paper form there okay with the receptionist minimal English and told him we were only two people instead of four. It cost us 800 yen per person for our site and we got a number to hang on our tent.

There were 26 wooden platform sites in our campground. About 10 were filled. We took #2 as it was closer to the bathrooms and a bit more wooded. The toilets were pretty nice. Apparently they helicopter remove all the waste from the park to keep the water fresh. We set up the tent easily although I had left the directions at home - a standard model. After transferring water and snacks to small packs, we headed out to do some more hiking. We decided to do a smaller loop since we were both tired. After briefly passing through the marshy area, the trail branched off into isolated woods. There was no one besides us and the trail was much less maintained. Very peaceful. At the top of the pass, we emerged into a stunning marshy area with pools. The wooden boardwalk disappeared halfway through into old wobbly planks. Clearly they were doing some renovating. Nothing like practicing our balancing acts!

Once we started our steep red marked descent, we ran into a couple other people. We definitely picked the better route upwards. We emerged at the other side of the trail that runs through the campground and grabbed our pasta salad dinner. Almost all the campsites were filled at this point. We decided to have dinner while relaxing on the beach. As it was quite a bit later, many of the park’s visitors had already left. Dropping our things on the beach, we went to soak our sore, tired feet in the cold water. It was not too chilly in the shallows. But we had to watch out for glass! Broken pieces were laying on the beach from litter. We both ended up relaxing on the beach after dinner watching the sun slowly go down and the temperature drop. Papa decided to run back to the campground to get dressed more warmly since he was only in shorts and a t-shirt. I at least had my fleece jacket.

The sunset was pretty nice, but it was really restful and calm. A thicker cloud cover along the horizon made it tricky to see the sun completely set. We headed back to our tent to get ready for bed although it was barely 7 pm. We were both so exhausted! Plus it was cold out! It seems in one of the cabins, you could stop by to watch a performance with piano and hang out with the other overnight guests. I was surprised to see there were two other groups of Westerners camping too. Papa somehow managed to fit diagonally in the tent and fell asleep quickly while I read for another hour. People kept walking by so it was noisy at first, but it calmed down later. I did wake up a lot because I was uncomfortable. No side sleeping on a platform with only a sleeping bag cushion!