Photo overload!

Nikko, where I live, and Oku Nikko, where the lakes are, are famous for the beautiful changing leaves during this season.  However depending on the weather, some years the leaves are more beautiful than others and this year isn't considered a good year for the autumn leaves.  It has been too warm and it is the sudden icy cold that brings out the red of the fall colors.

Nevertheless, Tetsu wanted to make a trip up the mountains to see what the autumn there was like this year and so last Saturday we left John at home (no dogs allowed on the protected hiking trails) and headed to the lake area and above.

Pretty but not spectacular.

A couple of our favorite trails were closed because of damage from the typhoons and rain that hit Japan earlier this month but there are many other trails to choose from and all of them are quite easy and can be done in everyday clothing.

Even so, most of the hikers look very professional with layers of socks and waterproof wear and things hanging from their backpacks and bells attached to warn off bears.  I felt like such an amateur but tennis shoes and an everyday bag got the job done.

(As an aside, there was a very pretty Chinese lady on the trail in vibrant orange high heels and matching lipstick and wearing a flowered skirt and silk flowered hat who asked me to take her picture.  She posed in many different poses while I snapped away, all with her facing the wilds of the mountains and pointing at unseen birds...  She was obviously doing a photoshoot for her blog or instagram or Twitter whatever.  We each have our own style...  I have Tetsu to take my photo whether I want it taken or not...)

Our goal this day was Odashirogahara which is a marsh in a mountain valley.  There were lots of yellow trees (birch) but no red.

I have been to this same spot other years where the opposite hillside has quite a number of avid photographers with their huge cameras set up on tripods and waiting for the marsh to become calm and glass-like.  There weren't many people there this day.

There is the "Noblewoman" of Odashirogahara, the one large birch tree that stands alone on the edge of the marsh.

Some of the other birch trees along the marsh.

 My photographer.

He doesn't take such great pictures of me... or maybe his subject just isn't very photogenic.  I should be looking away into the distance like my trail acquaintance.

We took the long way back to the parking lot resulting in about a three hour walk this day.  Through a forest of birch trees.

 Yes, it's autumn but not really that colorful.

 Maybe we were there too early this year?

Past a lot of moss on trees fallen long ago.

I guess this part of the trail doesn't get a lot of sunlight.

Should I give up on my funny hat?  At my age it is a little odd...

We can get caught up in the the details of leaves...

....and weeds.

 There was the occasional burst of color.

On the way down the mountain we got stuck in traffic.  I guess there were more people who wanted to see the leaves than I'd thought.  Where were they all?  We didn't see that many people on the trail that WE took.  I shot this picture on the hairpin curve of the one way Iroha road going down the mountain.  At one time it had been a two-way road and I remember bus guides having to get out of the buses at each hairpin curve to blow whistles and guide bus drivers past on-coming buses...

Near the bottom of the mountain we saw some construction above the road we were stopped on.  Look at that boulder that has been secured to keep it from crushing the traffic below it.  The workers next to the orange shovel car are in precarious enough a position but check out the bulldozer on the side of the mountain above the boulder.  It was resting at an impossible angle!  These workers have to have a lot of courage to do their jobs!

Pretty soon the leaves will be gone...  The autumn went quickly.