Just got back from a few days up on the Japanese mainland. I flew from Okinawa to Niigata, met up with my friend Steve, then drove south into Nagano prefecture for a day with the snow monkeys and a couple of days snowboarding.

Steve at the start of the trail up to Jigokudani Onsen

There was much less snow than during my previous visit so the hike up the trail was no problem.

Hiking up the trail to Jigokudani Onsen (photo by Steve)

At the hot springs I spent the afternoon photographing the various monkeys. You can read about my first visit to Jigokudani Onsen on my main website.  Previously I had taken most of my snow monkeys photographs with a huge 400mm telephoto lens, but this time I wanted to get even closer so I left the telephoto lens in Okinawa and brought a macro lens for some portraits. As you can see it wasn’t difficult to get very close to the monkeys.

Up close with the snow monkeys at Jigokudani Onsen (photo by Steve)

Once it was too dark to shoot, we headed over to the Korakukan Jigokudani guesthouse to relax in the onsen. I was hoping that the monkeys would come and join us in the pool, but they were not interested in joining the bathing apes.

Steve the bathing ape, Jigokudani Onsen, Nagano

It will be a few more days until I get my film processed. Will post the new photographs as soon as they are scanned.