Road Trip : Fuji Parikrama

Courtesy : http://www.jnto.go.jp

In the August of 2003, I trekked Mt. Fuji with a goal of watching the early morning sun and then make a full circle of the crater on the top, neither of this was possible on account of a typhoon, call it bad timing. But last sunday I joined Bharat and Eisha in completing the "Fuji Parikrama" if not at the summit.

We set out at 8:00 AM on the chou expressway. It was a bright sunny day. After an hours drive we rested at Futaba Parking area , and dallyed at the fuji view point. The plan of the day was to exit the expressway at Fuji-yoshida, drive down to Fuji Safari park via Lake Yamanaka, then move onto Shiraito Falls and take the route 139 and hit the expressway.

FUJI SAFARI REVISITED

[AP*, f4.5, 1/200, 200mm ], Handheld VR On.

It was around 11:00AM and we were at Fuji Safari Park as planned. This being my second visit in under 7days was a bit reluctant to go on a shooting spree. Bharat was almost petrified at the wheel when a lioness started strolling around the car.

[AP*, f5, 1/250, 22mm ], Handheld.

This lioness on the tree caught my attention as I was in perfect position to get the best of what I could. This would be my first reference of calling the big fellow "cute" and hopefully the last. After spending a couple of hours at the park we traced our way to my destination of the day the Shiraito Waterfalls. The drive to the falls was just the best of all times. It was like driving an alpine course on the Grand Turismo 4 (sony playstation).

SHIRAITO WATERFALLS / SHIRAITONOTAKI

[SP*, f16, 1/3, 18mm ], on tripod, crop in height.

At the very sight of the falls one feels that they are rightly named as "white thread falls". The falls measured 200meters in width and 20 meters in height. I started on my assignment of shooting the falls. Since we had a plan of spending a good amount of time at the falls, I spent a great deal of time correcting some imprefections I got used to.

[SP*, f11, 1/25, 31mm ],on tripod

Probably this is my first instance of using the tripod to the best. The slightly overcast conditions helped me to a great extent. Shooting the images in raw always has the down side of spending loads of time to rework, since I am still a longway away from Photoshop and/or writing automating scripts. On the lighter side along with great felxibility comes great pain.

[SP*, f9, 1/8, 18mm ], on tripod, circular polarizer

Once done with the basic shooting I experimented with the polarizer, which yeilded some acceptable results.

[SP*, f16, 1/3, 18mm ],on tripod.

There were a couple of gold fish that were trying to swim upstream. Wondered for a while why they need to do so. With little interest in further researching on that subject, I tried to capture them, the end result being the shot here under.

[SP*, f7.1, 1/10, 18mm ], on tripod, circular polarizer.

At around 3:00PM we hit the road. On the way we visited the Fugaku Lava cave, the temperature in this cave is ZERO Degrees centigrade even in peak summer. One can find 15 feet long ICE stalagmites resembling the Amarnath ice lingam.

We were almost nearing the expressway when we got a good glimpse of the Mt Fuji which was masked by clouds all day long. By 6:00PM we were done and a successful Fuji Parikrama came to an end.

Camera : Nikon D70
Lens : Nikkor 18-70mm DX