The Oirase River in Aomori is a photographers playground! The river flows out of Lake Towada and is part of the Towada-Hachimantai National Park.

The river has countless waterfalls, cascades, mossy boulders and beautiful beech forests. It would be nice to visit all year round, but for photography purposes I have always wanted to visit in autumn with the changing colours of the leaves.

There is a walking track that stretches the length of the river and bus stops at some of the main points of interest so you can choose to ride part of the way. To walk the entire length would take around 4 hours one way, so it isn’t really practical to consider walking the whole length – especially with a camera in hand!

Late last month, while doing some reccies for my upcoming Japan photo tour, we spent some time at Oirase. Autumn was well and truly past for our visit and indeed we were there to witness the first snowfall of the 2024-25 winter so that was nice!

Nevertheless, some very useful information was gathered, and I look forward to sharing this location with a small group next October 🙂