I had a four-day trip to Obihiro, the east part of Hokkaido. The main purpose was to visit a ruined train arch bridge that exists in Nukabira Lake. I knew the existence of this old abandoned rail arch bridge because of the awesome scenery. However, l couldn’t visit it until now because of the long distance from Hakodate to Nukabira. One day, I heard on the TV news that this bridge would be destroyed soon by its severe circumstances because the bridge routinely becomes submerged in water during the winter season.
The logging railway was constructed in 1939 with this beautiful arch bridge on the Taushubetsu River. However, it was not used in 1955 because the Nukabira dam was made downriver. This dam is only for generating electricity during the winter season, so every autumn to early winter, the bridge is submerged completely. The mid-winter temperatures of this area are extremely low and the permeated water in the bridge freezes over. This is the main reason that the arch has spoiled so quickly. The news said that there was a partial collapse of the side wall of the bridge, but the bridge barely connected to each side. So I decided to go there immediately.
It is possible to get close to the bridge without a tour guide, however, there might be a place where brown bears live nearby, and driving on a narrow path through a forest could be tough for a beginner. So we reserved the tour that was provided by the Higashi Taisetsu Nature Guide Center. On that day, almost twenty people got together at the Nature Center at 2:00 in the afternoon, and we divided up and set out in three cars. It took about 20 minutes to the parking lot near the bridge. We started walking through the deep forest and, a few minutes later, the surroundings cleared up suddenly. It was a lake view, but I couldn’t find a bridge in my line of sight at that time. However, I found it when I got closer to the edge of the lake. The scenery was amazing with the reflection on the lake water.
After the instructions from a guide, we had 30 minutes of freetime there. Of course, we couldn’t climb up the bridge because of the vulnerability and because there were no guardrails on it. However, we could walk around below it freely. A guide person said that the deterioration of the bridge was accelerating quickly, especially in these last few years. Also, he was afraid that we wouldn’t enjoy the complete arch bridge next summer. I took so many pictures to preserve this beautiful scenery. The tour cost four thousand and five hundred yen per person, but it was worth paying money for that. Additionally, they provide a winter tour to the arch bridge through the frozen lake on foot. The tour reservations might be very limited because the period when the surface of the lake freezes completely is very short. If I have an opportunity to visit there again, I’ll try to walk on the frozen lake and enjoy the scenery of the bridge covered with snow someday.
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