Paul Hartrick » White Water Rafting http://paulhartrick.com -have the courage to live your own life- Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:32:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 White Water Rafting in Minakami http://paulhartrick.com/white-water-rafting-in-minakami http://paulhartrick.com/white-water-rafting-in-minakami#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 01:03:43 +0000 -Paul http://paulhartrick.com/?p=1066 With the end of the Ski Season Japan and the ramp up of Summer activities I decided to give White Water Rafting a try while the snow is melting and the water is running fast enough to give more than the average adrenalin rush.

The location of choice was the Tone River in Minakami about 2 hours north of Tokyo. I decided to head up the night before as the train planning system told me it was a 3+ hour train ride to get to Minakami station…

For those who will travel to Minakami, catch the Shinkansen to Jomokogen station(上毛高原駅) and get a ride from the tour operators… 10 times more comfortable and twice as fast.. local knowledge very useful and was used on the trip back… dumbass train planning systems…

White Water Rafting in Manakimi(水上) is definitely a highly recommended activity… Local advice was to do it before July for maximum fun so I will be going back in June to do Canyoning and White Water Rafting again… For safety reasons I wasn’t able to use my Tachyon XC sports camera but the photos the tour company took were great and have posted a few of them below.

I’m not that hard to pick in the photos, the only foreigner and I also happened to muscle into front position of the boat.

521130raft-002Pre-Rafting training… The guide is from Peru…

521130raft-006Didn’t see this in the brochure….

521130raft-010Taking it a bit too serious…

521130raft-017Getting interesting…

521130raft-018Getting the adrenalin going now…

521130raft-021That’s a good idea… Bring the rafts together…!?

521130raft-024Relatively calm part of the river…

521130raft-029Hold on…

521130raft-032Now it’s getting fun…

521130raft-037All back in one piece…

I chose the fastest river run for maximum enjoyment which meant only 4 braves in the raft at the beginning and then we joined up with the other rafts about 20 minutes down the river and traveled for about another 40 minutes through various rapids and rocks… It all culminated in an optional 4 meter Rock dive that the tour guides were quick to point out was not covered by insurance,  everyone did it and nobody got injured.

bbq

After the White Water Rafting there was a BBQ and a few beers to unwind and share the experience with the other people…

Finally my ride home…

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