Ootaki Outdoor Adventures

Recently the entire konnichiwa-japan team had a wonderful outdoor experience with Sakai-san from Ootaki Outdoor Adventures. Sakai-san led us on a guided snowshoe tour through the beautiful forests of Ootaki, to the center of the Shikotsu-Toya National Park where we entered the amazing Nyoro Nyoro cave!

Nyoro Nyoro cave is a natural cave formed by springwater runoff, located a few kilometers from Ootaki next to the Tokushunbetsu river. The cave itself is quite large, and it's possible to go right inside for several meters. Springwater bubbles up from underground and runs down from the ceiling of the cave. In winter this runoff water freezes, forming beautiful stalactites and stalagmites made of ice. Some of these are over two meters! The effect is that of a beautiful, otherworldly crystal cave.

Sakai-san is a wonderful guide, and speaks fluent English. He spent several years working in the U.S.A. as a ski instructor and sports physiotherapist before moving back to Hokkaido and starting Ootaki Outdoor Adventures. His warm personality and obvious love of the outdoors really added to our enjoyment of the tour.

The tour took about 3 hours, and was not too dificult, even though most of us had never snowshoed before. Winding across open, snow-covered fields, through a pristine forest, to the edge of the Tokushunbetsu river valley and along the course of the clear Tokushunbetsu river, the tour had many wonderful views and exciting highlights. The cave itslef was the most exciting part of the tour, but a snow slide down the valley's edge on our bottoms and a hot tea and homemade cookie break outside the cave were also a lot of fun!

For more information or to book a tour please visit Ootaki Outdoor Adventures at: http://ooa.jimdo.com/ or contact them at:

TEL ０９０－６８７３－１９７０

E-MAIL fumisakai(at)hotmail.com