Hiking near Gero city (下呂市)

I went for yet another hike with the CHIC hiking club to a mountain near Gero.

Gero, located in Gifu prefecture, is a city famous for its onsens (hot springs).

We used the JR Takayama train, which crosses the central Japan, giving access to very beautiful natural places. The train cooling system was quite interesting hehe.

From Gero we took a taxi to the entrance of the route to climb the Gero-Gozen mountain.

We had very good luck with the weather. The sky was blue and I could take clear photos of the nature and the other club members.

We could already see how the arrival of Autumn was turning the leaves red. A very popular phenomenom in Japan that is commonly known as momiji or kouyou. Some of the trees were already without any leaves at all as well.

I found a nice decorative toy in the bushes and I put it near to a budha statue that was in the middle of the mountain.

We arrived to the top without any difficulties. I checked with my watch the altitude, which was around 1400 meters. I received this watch from my colleagues in my previous laboratory at the University of Cantabria (thanks!).

The views from the top where quite nice and we could see the Mt Ontake which already had some snow on the top.

After getting down we went to Gassho-mura and entered to a museum with traditional Japanese houses. Gassho refers to the position of the hands when praying and the roof of this houses, which resemble this position, are known as Gasshotsukuri.

Inside the open-air museum there were special onsens for the feet, called ashiyu.

After the visit to the traditional houses museum we went to enjoy a bath in Gero-Onsen. This place is one of the three most famous ones to go to onsens in Japan. To complete our great day we finished it by tasting some delicious Hida raw meat.