Over 2000 m up in the mountains of Nagano, Japan lies a forest that some describe as feeling enchanted.

A forest.

It's so hard to reach that the roads are closed for nearly half a year in the cooler months, but for a few short months of the year it's open for those who make the journey.

Uh huh.

Mm hmm mm mm mhm mm.

I camped out at a nearby parking lot overnight so I'd be able to start the day nice and early.

It's about 5 30 right now as it usually is, the sun is just barely starting to peek through the trees and other than a few photos that I saw on google maps, I don't know what to expect.

Don't know how big it is.

It's gonna find out.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

now when you get about five or so minutes in the path splits off like this.

Just a minute ago a photographer went running by me blew right past a beautiful scene with a couple cameras and all right figured he must be searching for something really good or know something really good.

So I chased him up to this point and lost them.

But realistically with this looking as nice as it does.

I don't think there's any bad choices.

There's a little bit of a map right here and this says that off this way, There's a 360° Panoramic view, but it requires about a 40 minute hike up the mountain.

It looks like most of the moss is going to be this way.

Well, I'm pretty sure this place is always beautiful, timing is really important with places like this, the best way is the most difficult way which is get a night that has heavy rainfall and then sunshine right after it looked like there was a chance of rain last night and then when I got here it was pouring and now now look at it, we, we got lucky, we got lucky.

So there's a lake off to my right over here and this section right beside the lake, there's a campsite, I could have come out here and just camps here last night it would have been really terrible with the rain to be tent camping on a night like that.

But going to pass through this area somewhat quietly because they did still insanely early and I don't want to wake everyone up.

I really need to watch my step here.

When I first found this place, I stumbled across it on google maps while looking for campsites in the area and at the time it was marked on google maps as Manana.

Okay, no more in the Forest of Manana.

Okay, now they say that the actual Forest of Manana Okay, the one that is based off of is out in Yaku shima.

I've been there.

I'd almost, I almost have to say that this is more beautiful than there again, I just got perfect timing as well but like many, I've always been a huge fan of the Chibli universe and just the way that everything is portrayed and shown and so I knew as soon as I found out that I had to, I had to come here now when I say it was first called that it's gone through quite, it's gone through quite the experience the process a few months later that named completely disappeared and it just said forest and all the photos associated with it were gone.

And then quite recently I'd say in the last maybe a week or two this place has come up as its official name and now shows on the map.

So yeah.

And then the path splits again when we get up here.

Mhm.

Back to the parking lot where I spent the night and there's a lake walking path at a mountain hiking path out here.

We'll head down this way.

Mhm I really got to watch your step on these boards.

There is another parking lot down the road where people were setting up tents and whatnot.

If you want to camp right beside your car and not bring your stuff out too campsite here and I just slept in the car for the night.

Mm hmm.

And it looks like I chose my paths wisely because this is the photographer who came running by me before.

The timing of golden.

We could I need someone like you know what they did.

There you go, well you got against the decision the Nikkei mega initial can hold on my, he baked it.

The more cardio.

This particular section of the forest is actually labeled as Mononoke Inamori or the Forest of Manana.

Okay and that photographer whose name is Hashi and I ended up becoming friends exploring the forest together for a while.

Mhm, mhm mm.

Mhm.

I have made my decision.

I it is so slippery here that I've fallen down like two or 3 times.

We didn't have any signals.

So we just kind of wrote down each other's instagrams after walking something like eight kilometers to the nagus endo trail and not coming across a single other person on the trail.

I wasn't expecting to meet anybody today but definitely definitely that I came across them.

I have no idea where we're going with the way this whole section here path and the ropes and everything just disappear and you find yourself just walking along rocks that are very slippery.

Okay.

Yeah, So it is 9:00 AM.

Now I have somehow been walking around this area for hours and when I guess when I say somehow you you can see you can see how It just, it feels like it's been 20 or 30 minutes.

You could easily easily spend an entire day here.

But looking at the area now with cloud cover and less light breaking through, you can see Why.

Huh?

She ran past me this morning to get the shots with the light breaking through.

But with or without it.

This is by far, I've got to be one of my new favorite places in Japan me.