End of August…
August 25thSummer has flown by with EOC HQ a tsunami of faxes, bookings, phone calls and emails; and guides dodging in and out between MTB, Canyoning, Kayak & Canoe tours, picnic and night hotaru cruises and hiking in the alps as well as children’s summer camps. This week has seen a bit of rain so the water level in the canyon has been great for this time of year.
We are now gearing up for the fifth edition of our annual Summer event, the JAM OFF 2008! We have a great line-up of live music and DJ’s over the three day weekend of September 13-15 combining three stages, the one-day HIAQ multi-discipline guided adventure, MTB dirt-jump jam plus a Sweetriders clinic, live graffiti, live tattooing, a SK8 mini-ramp jam, african drum workshops, yoga, ethnic food and much more…check out our main JAM OFF page here for details.
Some recent photos…
August 18
Evergreen HQ has been mad busy and we’ve been away from the computers and out in the field. Here’s a few shots of what we’ve been up to over the last month…
MTB Funrides
July 16
The days are warming up but the weather’s still been fine for mountain biking. We took a short ride yesterday to bring you all a few photos of some of the views on our half-day Hakuba funride.
View of Happo-one from Wadano hill.
Shrine in Wadano/Happo
Rest stop near the Matsukawa
Rock run to..?
Mandatory tourist shot from Donguri
Rice field ride with Hakuba Highland in the distance
Nice stop for a spot
No trip is complete without making friends. These girls were in Hakuba on day 42 of their bike/train journey from Hokkaido to Okinawa. We wish you well on your travels!
School Trips
July 3rd
We’ve been having lots of school trips coming to Hakuba camping and enjoying the outdoors and it’s been a lot of fun getting them wet! Here are some photos from a recent trip with students from Kyoto Nakagyou Chugakkou.
B.S.T Grade 9 Camp
June 18-20
We were blessed with some great weather for our British School in Tokyo Grade 9 school camp who camped with us for 2 nights at Lake Aokiko.The first day was spent on the lake learning canoe paddling techniques vital for down-river canoeing. Days 2 and 3 the students were split into two groups and both groups had a chance to explore the Aokiko-Hakuba area by Mountain Bike,
and to put the paddling skills they’d learnt into practice on the Sai River. All the students did amazingly well and we didn’t have one upturned canoe! (well…nearly 
) We also went night-hiking and had a camp-fire right by the river. The BST students are a great group of funny, mature young adults who seemed to really appreciate taking some time out from the city that is Tokyo, to relax in nature, to learn about some of the purest water Japan has to offer, and to see some stars for a change! We look forward to seeing them all again…
getting ready
setting off
lunchtime
jump rock
nice paddle techniques
Trail-Blazers 2007
June 1st to 13th we had our yearly visitors from India, The Trailblazers Group, who joined us for a two week guided tour. They had a busy and extremely varied programme and truly got to see a diverse side of Japan with their first two days including trips to see the famous monkey onsen in Nagano (Jigokudani), the ancient temple Zen Koji in Nagano City, and the Winter Olympic Ski Jumps here in Hakuba.
While in Hakuba they did a variety of activities which involved challenging themselves, learning new skills, learning about the environment, and about the history and culture of Japan. They went rock-climbing, mountain-biked along the historic shio-no-michi, did a day trip to the historic temple of Togakushi and the ancient Ninja training site…
Back to Hakuba, they went kayaking on Lake Aokiko, hiking in the Japan Alps, developed their canoeing skills on the lake and then challenged themselves by doing a down-river tour on the Sai River, had a camp-fire, tried their hand at kendo, and treated us to several delicious home-cooked indian gourmet dinners! We also received several presents from them, including indian cook-books, though I haven’t been able to recreate the delicious meal we enjoyed with them!
Finally came the time for them to leave Hakuba, and away they went with Dave to explore Matsumoto Castle, Tokyo City and kabuki, and last but not least, Tokyo Disneyland! I think its safe to say they went away with memories and experiences they will never forget, and we look forward to welcoming the Trail Blazers back to Japan next year! If you are interested in organising a tour like this in conjunction with Evergreen Outdoor Center, contact us for details!
Team Evergreen
The Evergreen Crew went down to the Matsukawa River recently to take a few team photos. Check them all out here!
Nagiso Canyon Now Open!
Evergreen Outdoor Center are pleased to announce the opening of a new canyon - “Nagiso”. This is an amazingly beautiful canyon with many great features– high cliffs jumping into crystal clear pools, fun sliders down smooth rocks, stunning waterfalls and canyon walls carved by years of erosion. To book or read more details check out our main website in English or Japanese!
Tokyo International School Grade 4 Camp!
We recently had students from the T.I.S come up camping at Lake Aokiko for the yearly Grade 4 camp. We spent a fun few days canoeing, mountain biking, learning about the ecology of the Aokiko area, and camp-firing!
Us here at Evergreen including Dave, Jon, Til, Sarah, Jess, Mitsu, Takeshi, Kazu, Tom & myself (Jade) would like to thank all of you at T.I.S. for your excellent attitudes, your smiles and happy voices (even at 4:30 in the morning!), and for giving your best in the activities and helping out with everything with such positive attitudes. We hope you all had a great time and took something special away; and by the way, you really made the camp fun for us too! We look forward to seeing you all again!!!
Click here to see more T.I.S Grade 4 Camp photos!
Some of our Summer staff…
But they don’t usually look like this…and they’re all fully functional most of the time. Our Summer staff have however been brushing up and building on first aid and rescue skills over the course of a one week Wilderness Alert First Aid Training course. We practiced a multitude of scenarios of possible accidents we might run into here on Evergreen’s home-turf in Hakuba. While this strengthened our confidence that we can handle anything thrown at us, we are just as confident that, thanks to this preparation, we wont have to because every simulation we run we are that much more prepared to prevent accidents from even happening in the first place.
Green Season 2008 has officially begun!
And begun with a vengeance! We spent Golden Week getting some last spring slush, mountain-biking, kayaking in Lake Aokiko and bbq’ing outdoors every chance we got! Hakuba is truly beautiful this time of year…definitely a place to come and enjoy. Check out our main website in English or Japanese for everything we offer!
