The Northern Alps and Tateyama – Part 1

As mentioned last week, I spent a couple of days hiking up in Japan’s Northern Alps region (or the Hida Mountain Range as it is officially known), on the border between Toyama and Nagano Prefectures. Despite a fair amount of typhoons in the general area and the already unreliable mountain weather I had some great days up there. For a stubborn Tokyo guy like me it’s good to get out of the city and see some of these unbelievably beautiful mountains. I recommend it to anyone who has a day or two off this summer. It is a bit difficult to do as a day trip from Tokyo but with two or three days it is eminently possible. I’d recommend doing the hiking tour as part of a tour group to cut down the costs: going there by car is horribly expensive (I did) and by regular bus and train it will take a long time to get there and back. Once there it should be easy to get away from the group and chose one of the more difficult trails to get away from the others. Camping or staying at one of the many mountain lodges is also possible. As for equipment, don’t sweat it. I was lucky with the weather so for me regular clothes were fine but if the weather turns bad you’ll need a bit heavier stuff. Don’t forget the sun block though! I did and I got a massive sun burn. The UV up there is intense!

One of the mountains I visited was the incredible Tateyama, which together with Mount Fuji and one other colossus is the trio of sacred Japanese mountains. I didn’t climb it all the way up to the top as I was far more interested in the Mars-like “death valley” beneath it, complete with hot springs, sulphur gas and wastelands. Beautiful! For now please enjoy these photos of the area around Tateyama (while remembering that I am neither skilled nor equipped to do nature photography). Aren’t these skies magnificent? I will post more later about the “death valley”, the camping possibilities and the nearby Kurobe dam project. Stay tuned!