Nature sounds of Frozen Fukuroda Ice Waterfalls | Daigo, Ibaraki Japan

Nature sounds of Frozen Fukuroda Ice Waterfalls | Daigo, Ibaraki Japan

At Fukuroda Falls(Fukuroda no Taki), one of Japan’s three major waterfalls, you can see an ice waterfall that freezes during the winter season from late December to mid-February.
Daigo town, Kuji-gun, Ibaraki Prefecture Japan, where Fukuroda Falls is located, is a region rich in nature in the northern part of Ibaraki Prefecture, and is also called Oku-Kuji in tourist information.
This area is made up of strata that have been deposited for about 1500 years, and fossils of shellfish that live in the sea have been discovered, so there are records that this was once the sea.
It is also known that Mt. Nantai, a famous peak of okukuji, was also a part of the submarine volcano.
Fukuroda Falls is formed by the water flow of the Takigawa River, which is a tributary of the Kuji River, scraping off the ejecta of submarine volcanoes, and the water flowing down the hard rock cliffs that have endured erosion for about 1500 years.
The length of this waterfall is 120 meters and the width is 73 meters, and it is also called Four Degree Waterfall(Yodo no Taki) because the rock surface scraped by erosion is divided into four times and the water flows down.
And along with Kegon Falls and Nachi Falls, it is listed as one of the three major waterfalls in Japan.
In addition, it is reported that Saigyo Hoshi, who visited this area, praised the fact that the natural scenery of this area changes with the changing seasons, saying, “This waterfall must come once every four seasons.”
There is also a theory that the words left by Saigyo came to be called the Yodo no taki.
As Saigyo left behind, you can see the fresh greenery of early summer and the beautiful autumn leaves that can be seen in autumn, and the icefall, which is a phenomenon in which the water flowing down the rock surface freezes in winter.
However, since 2012, when it was completely frozen at the end, it has stopped at a maximum of 70% to 90%.
In recent years, while the effects of global warming have been whispered, I was able to see the scenery where 70% of the waterfalls were frozen on the morning of February 2022 when I visited.