Sunday Drive

This past Sunday I was finally able to take a drive in the mountains to check out the fall color. I almost waited too late. I decided to go to Lake Inawashiro and from there to Goshikinuma (five colored ponds) then on to the Bandai-Azuma Skyline Drive. I could take highway 49 but it's always crowded and slow. Highway 6 is a good choice. It’s a good road winding through a gap in the mountains with nice scenic views and two tunnels. But I picked the road through Goreibitsu Pass. Now that road has character.

Goreibitsu Pass photos. Click to see more.

I stopped just below the summit of Goreibitsu Pass to look back at Koriyama. Plenty of fall color at the lower altitudes but here at the summit it's winter. The leaves are gone and only the bare trees remain. Clouds are moving in and a storm is approaching. If it rains that's okay sometimes overcast days make better photographs anyway. Photos....

Lake Inawashiro was getting whipped by the wind. And it was a cold wind coming across the lake. A rainbow in the distance is suggesting precipitation. Soon a squall hit and the rain started. Photos....

By the time I got to Goshikinuma the rain was trying to change to snow. There was still some fall color and the blue water, fall colors, snow and rain made the place look so different than it had last summer. The school kids were gone and in their place was a more mature crowd, kind of like the Autumn itself. Photos....

I expected the Skyline Drive would be bare of color by now. It's much higher in elevation and I suspect it has been winter there now for a while. At about 3700 feet it was no longer raining but now snowing. As I climbed higher I could tell it had been snowing for some time. The little Cube Cubic was trying but it just couldn't get any higher. I think it's time to put the snow tires on and settle in for a long winter.

I turned around and went home. Photos....