志賀高原の熊の湯スキー場の少し手前に平床という場所がある。この場所を最初に訪れたのは実に57年前。ここに通っていた学校の寮（成蹊学園）がありこの地で初めて中学一年の時にスキーを履いた。その後約40数年間スキーのためにこの場所に通い最近10年は風景写真の撮影で訪れている。　５０年前はこのように多くの白樺はなく単に広い平原であった。当時は現在のように新幹線も高速道路も宅配便もなく長いスキー、キスリングザックを担いで信越線で上野から長野、その後は長野電鉄に乗り湯田中まで、湯田中からは一時間近くバスに乗り通ったことは今でも懐かしい。この地を訪れるたびに当時の思い出がはっきり浮かびあがってくる。　スキーはやめてしまったが、この地はこれからも四季を問わず訪れてみたい。

A little before the Kumanoyu ski resort in Shiga Kogen, there is a place called Hiratoko. I first visited this place 57 years ago. There was a dormitory (Seikei Gakuen) where I went to school, and it was here that I first skied in the first year of junior high school. After that, I have been coming to this place for skiing for more than 40 years, and for the last 10 years, I have been visiting here to take landscape photographs.　Fifty years ago, there were not many white birches like this and it was just a wide plain. At that time, there were no bullet trains, expressways, or courier services as there are now, so I took the Shinetsu Line from Ueno to Nagano, then rode the Nagano Electric Railway to Yudanaka, and from Yudanaka took a bus for nearly an hour to get there. Every time I visit this area, memories of those days come back to me.　Although I have stopped skiing, I would like to continue to visit this place in all seasons.