Fist Snow in the village!

3rd November 2009

First snow down to village level came down last night to the smiles of many…

Hatsuyuki in Hakuba

28th October 2009

Fist sn

ow fell around the 9th…this pretty much melted off but after some solid days of rain we have a decent cover of white on the Alps now which should be here to stay!

Summer Holidays in Hakuba

September

September has seen the temperature starting to cool and plenty of long sunny days as the Hakuba valley enters Autumn. The rice fields have been turning more and more golden and the trees have started to change colour from green to yellow, orange and deep red. Fun Mountain Bike trips, hiking and bonfires have been some of the highlights of the month so far.

Delicious staff lunches from the Roots Cafe kitchen.

July/August

June/July brought mostly rainy days but as usual August has pulled out a stunner in Hakuba with bluebird sunny days through most of Obon perfect for Canyoning, Kayaking, Canoeing, MTBing, Hot Air Ballooning, Hiking the Alps or just bbq’ing at the river. Below are some of the few excerpts from the last few weeks:

Canyoning - August 12th

Downriver Kayaking -August 15th

July 11th
Today saw the visit of a hot air balloon to evergreen allowing everyone a different view of Kokusai and the Happo area.

July 17th
A wonderful cycling tour from Togakushi over part of the Japanese Alps to Minami Otari and down into the Hakuba Valley. The tour travelled through high moutain passes once used to train ninja assassins. Some parts of the passes are closed in winter due to snow and only open for a few months of the year and even then only accessible by foot or on bike.

The route wound passed old shrines and soba houses that are hundreds of years old.

On the way the tour was attacked by ninjas

luckily some members of the tour were trained in the ninja arts themselves.

BST Camp

17th-19th June

Pupils from Year 9 at the British School of Tokyo arrived in Hakuba for a super fun camp with Evergreen. The camp also involved lots of great activities including mountain biking, downriver canoeing and the cool high ropes course at Ex Adventure.

Danish Embassy Challenge

5th June

An exiting day for all involved as staff of the Danish embassy arrived in Hakuba for the Adventure Challenge Race. The race took place on a slightly overcast but dry day in the Hakuba valley. The racers all took part in a pre-race warmup and spent some time practicing and getting used to their brand new ‘Kona’ mountain bikes which were to be their mode of transport for the race.

The race started from Kokusai Lodge.

The race took everyone through Hakuba village and past the old Shinto shrine before heading on out of the village heading past the first few checkpoints and arriving at the mystery challenge.

The mystery challenge involved the teams having to build a fire upon which they had to cook an egg for one lucky member of the team to eat.

After the mystery challenge was successfully completed the teams headed onto the next part of the race which involved some orienteering checkpoints in the forest near Hakuba Iwatake.

Upon emerging from the forest the teams were faced with a challenge high up in the trees at ‘Ex Adventure’.

After the high ropes course was completed the race was on to find the last few checkpoints and then make the final sprint for the finishing line.

All the teams successfully finished the race with team Tanuki coming in in first place.

All in all it was a fantastic day and well done to everyone.

Ride & Slide…

18th May

Evergreen offers a multitude of combined tours, basically you can choose any two half-day activities for an action-combo day in Hakuba.  Coming up next month Sweetriders are putting on a two-day event which includes MTBing and Canyoning…two of our favourite pursuits. Check details on our events page or at the Sweetriders site.

Springs coming…

22nd April

Or should that be its already here? Plus 20 on the sunny days; birds chirping, insects crawling around and trees in blossom; the boards and skis are still out for the occasional kick around but bikes, canoes, kayaks, hiking boots and canyoning gear are getting dusted off and ready to go…tours start April 25th; see you here for some Hakuba Spring-time…photos coming soon!