Snowshoeing Oirase Gorge February 2019

Late in February Ethan took a Friday off and helped me fulfill one more thing on my Japan bucket list... snowshoeing in Oirase Gorge!

It was a perfect day for it, too!  Not too cold, no snow/rain on us.  Fisher got to tag along for all the fun.  Two little mishaps on my part... I lost my nice (=expensive) sunglasses Ethan had bought for me in San Antonio and I forgot my phone, so I had to use Ethan's phone for pictures.

Fisher was being really fussy... looking back at these photos I can see that he was really uncomfortable.

Poor guy.  But at about this point, we figure it out and switched him to the front of Ethan and he was much happier for the rest of the trip.

We traipsed up and down the hills that are usually off limits because they aren't on the trail... but since the snow is so deep we didn't have to worry about hurting any of the plants.

Trying to turn around, I crossed my shoes and fell... no wonder I don't dare skiing... I can't even stay up on my feet in snowshoes. Ha!  You can see Fisher's and my warm winter hats hanging out of my pockets.  It was a really pleasant temperature!

Baby is much happier now that he can see what's going on!

And what beautiful sites to see!

I think I accidentally did a photo burst (I'm not very good with Ethan's phone) and got SO many photos at this spot.  I couldn't delete all of them, their faces are just so adorable!

Up on the hills/mountain the snow was white and lovely.  Once we crossed the road and walked beside the water the snow was a lot dirtier, but it was so neat seeing the snow mounds piled up on the rocks in and surrounding the water!

You can kind of see here that we're walking right next to the road, but we were above the height of most of the cars (not vans/trucks, though).  The road is to the left, the water on the right.

We found this little trinket hanging in a tree.  I wish I knew what it meant!

Wow.

Cuties.

After we made out way back to the car, we bought some ramen for lunch.  We also tried the warm lemonade from the vending machine.  It was SO good!  Exactly what we needed after being out in the cold for a couple hours.  Fisher was more than happy to be on his own two feet and able to explore a little.

Just not out into the road and parking lot, little buddy!

Puddles are so much fun.

He doesn't have great mittens, I have to use hair elastics around his wrist to try to keep them on... but even then occasionally he loses one.  I was trying to put it back on him but he was eager to experience his surroundings with his fingers.

It was such fun way to spend the day!  I'm so glad we took the time to do it.  Also, I just love Fisher's little snowsuit.  He is the cutest!