Ichinose 2018

Sat, 10 Mar 2018 06:18:03 +0000

The annual family snow trips have been a popular event for us for a while and it’s not too much of a drive - ~4.5 hours and 320Km to Nagano Prefecture’s Shiga Kogen Ichinose area, and even better, the last 15Km requires [rubber] chains or snow tyres, and as we have the former, I do get to enjoy driving in the mountains.

We usually like to try different places to stay for a bit of variety, but this year we stayed at the same place for two weekends in the ‘village’ of Ichinose, thanks to getting a deal staying at the Hotel Japan for a few days via Expedia.

Disconcertingly, the hotel we chose had a fire a couple of years ago in the main wing apparently, though from what we saw, it all looked like business as usual aside from lots of reminders not to smoke… I don’t know why, but does the name ‘Hotel Japan’ seem a bit generic? That said, breakfast was decent, it’s above an excellent Nepalese restaurant, and the onsen is nice and clean.

Anyway, for families, Ichinose is very decent - a cluster of hotels, some bars and restaurants, and access to much of the Shiga Kogen ski resort area, and even over to Kusatsu if you drive just a little bit more. We spent time around the Diamond area nearby - it’s not awesome powder or insane double diamonds, but it’s a nice family paced warm up area, then we drove the 5Km around to Okushiga, as they have a good ski school for the kids, and a good mix of steep, S bend oriented forest runs for variety, and on a good day, some nice powder - it’s also just a bit of a slide over to the Yakebitaiyama courses.

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Bike trip to Nagano

Fri, 25 May 2007 14:12:15 +0000

Yesterday myself and a couple of friends (who are much more experienced bikers) went from Tokyo up to the mountains of Nagano. To get the stats out of the way, we did about 500Km from between 7am and about 9pm.

We jumped on the Chuo Expressway at Chofu and ran up to Chino City in Nagano Prefecture, biked around the mountains, having stopped at a faux English Garden for some (very tasty) gingerbread biscuits, then relaxing over a real Indian curry for lunch, before taking in some awesome vistas around the mountains, including the Venus Line run and Suwa.

After running up the mountains we then dropped down into the valleys where life is simpler, slower, and three guys coming through on bikes actually turns heads.

What was interesting is that as far as we could tell, the main vehicles in the area are small white Suzuki mini-vans. Anyway, when we got a little confused on the twisting mountain roads between tiny, almost stereotypical rice fields, the men who seemed to be patrolling in these vans were very happy to help us out.

One thing I wont go into details on is the ‘Summer only’ road. Yes. That was interesting.

I managed to take a few photos at stops, and though they don’t capture the fun, they should, I hope hint at some of the beautiful scenery we saw along the way. As before, the weather was fantastic as you can see in a few of those shots; even up high in the mountains it never got cold or wet.

The way back wasn’t too bad either; the Chuo was relatively clear, and the Dangozaka service station was relatively empty meaning the run back was smooth, without any jams.

Bottom line: a great trip, maybe even better than the first one, and a big driver for me to actually organise one or two of my own one day trips over the Summer, in spite of what will be blistering weather!

2026 Trips to Shiga Kogen

Nagano on Nanikore

Ichinose 2018

Bike trip to Nagano