Going Northern Alps on the Weekends | Guidable - Your Guide to a Sustainable, Wellbeing-centred Life in Japan

Going Northern Alps on the Weekends

By Guidable Writers Jul 21, 2016

Most of Japan is covered by mountains. That means there are many hiking course to enjoy beautiful nature on the weekends. However it is a little hard to access the trailhead, if you don`t have Japanese car license. So, you need to use public transportation to get the place.

 

スクリーンショット 2016-07-21 13.24.53[Reference:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Shiroumadake_from_maruyama_26_2000_7_30.jpg]

 


The below are lists of representative place you can go by public transportation for a few days.

 

Kamikochi (Nagano Prefecture) 

http://www.kamikochi.or.jp/english/access/

 Here is place to go to Yari-ga-take, Hotaka mountain range.

Hakuba (Nagano Prefecture)
http://www.hakubavalley.com/gettinghere/

You can approach Shirouma-dake, Katamatsu-dake, Goryu-dake.

Tateyama (Toyama efecture)
http://www.alpen-route.com/en/access_new/index.html

  Here is main place of Tateyama Mountain Range, Kurobe alpine route.

Shinhotaka-onsesn (Gifu  Prefecture)
http://shinhotaka-ropeway.jp.e.uk.hp.transer.com/access/

You can also approach Yari-ga-take, Hotaka mountain range from here.

In addition, you can trek opposite side of Hotaka montain range such as Kasa-ga-take, Sugoroku-dake.

 


スクリーンショット 2016-07-21 13.28.36
[Reference: http://www.buena-vista.co.jp/blog/2012/04/entry-917.php]


If you would like to satisfied with the Alps, it is better to spend overnight in the mountain, because you can have a chance to see dramatic landscape especially in the evening and morning such as slanting rays of light.

You have 2 ways to stay.

 

<Staying hut vs tent>

Staying hut including dinner and breakfast is about 8,000 to 10,000 yen per night. The food menu is almost fixed that means you can not choose what you want to eat. Even if you are vegetarian or vegan, the menu is not taken into account about your creed. The reason why is that most of food are carried by helicopter or by hand. If you would like to eat what you want, you can choose staying overnight without meals, that cost is about 5,000 yen.

As for Bedtime, it is being decided around 9.pm. In some cases, you need to make a reservation in advance especially during consecutive holidays in July, August and September.

    

If you have physical, it`s better to stay with tent. You can carry what you want to eat, you can keep stay up as much as you want. However, you need to careful during consecutive holidays, there are many tent hikers in the popular area. It’s better to reach the tent site early time, if you would like to choose where you pitch a tent.

 

スクリーンショット 2016-07-21 13.25.03[Reference:http://camperz.xyz/?p=11910]

 


You would consume water on the way to tent field. The signpost is not written in English. So it is very important where you get water to drink. You can get drinkable water “
” points that indicated on the map of SHOBUN-SYA. The “” points located along the river, stream, spring water and so on.

Ryu

Japan