Day 4
The Oirase gorge and Lake Towada
Morning
Nenokuchi to Yakeyama trail
Fourteen kilometres of level path following the only outflow of Lake Towada, between mossy rocks, beeches and a succession of waterfalls. The route is designated a special natural site and a natural monument: you can walk just one section, a bus runs along the parallel road. Allow four hours for the whole thing.
Chōshi and Kumoi falls
The Chōshi-ōtaki is the only one falling straight into the main river, 7 metres high and 20 wide; it stops fish from swimming up to the lake, which long remained without aquatic life. The Kumoi, higher at 20 metres, drops in three tiers into a green cirque.
Afternoon
Lake Towada and the Ogura peninsula
A double caldera filled with water, at 400 metres altitude and 327 metres deep, the third deepest lake in Japan. Two peninsulas, Ogura and Nakayama, close off Nakanoumi bay to the south: the road running along them is one of the finest in Tōhoku.
Evening
Statue of the Maidens
Two naked bronze women, hand against hand, set at the water's edge in Yasumiya. The last work of the poet and sculptor Kōtarō Takamura, in 1953: both faces are those of his wife Chieko, who had died ten years earlier.
