Chūbu-Sangaku National Park

Listen first. Under the wind, you can hear water. It runs everywhere here: cold, fast, and so clear that the stones on the riverbed look close enough to touch. The air smells of wet larch and crushed bamboo grass. Above you, grey granite ridges rise into thin cloud, and on many days snow still lies in the high gullies. You are standing in the Northern Japanese Alps, inside Chūbu-Sangaku National Park, one of the oldest protected landscapes in Japan.

The park was created in 1934, in the first group of national parks in the country. It covers a long spine of mountains across several prefectures: Nagano, Gifu, Toyama, and a corner of Niigata. The heart of it is the Hida Mountains, the range most people mean when they say the Northern Alps. Several of the highest peaks in Japan stand here, many of them above 3,000 metres. Only Mount Fuji and one southern summit stand higher.

The name itself needs a short explanation. Chūbu means the central region of Japan. Sangaku simply means mountains, or high peaks. So the name is plain and practical: the mountains of central Japan. There is no poetry in the title. The poetry comes from what you see when you look up. You see sharp ridges, deep valleys cut by ice and water, and slopes that turn from green to gold to white through the year.

Here is the first surprise. The phrase Japanese Alps did not come from Japan. It came from Western visitors in the nineteenth century. An English mining engineer, William Gowland, used the term after he climbed in these mountains. Later, an English missionary named Walter Weston made it famous. He climbed many of these peaks in the 1890s and wrote a book about them for readers in Britain. That book helped to start a new idea in Japan: climbing mountains for pleasure.

Before that, many Japanese people climbed mountains for religious reasons. Many peaks were sacred, and pilgrims climbed them to pray, not to collect summits. Weston is still remembered in the Kamikochi valley. A bronze relief of his face is set into a rock there, and a festival is held for him each year. For an Englishman, he received a warm welcome. Local guides deserve credit too. One of them led Weston through these valleys and knew the routes long before any foreigner arrived.

Kamikochi is the place most visitors reach first. It is a high, flat valley in the Nagano part of the park, along the Azusa River. The river is famous for its colour. On a clear day it shows shades of pale blue and green over white stone. A wooden suspension footbridge, the Kappa Bridge, crosses the water near the main bus area. From the bridge, you look straight up the valley toward the Hotaka peaks. This is the view on many postcards and calendars.

Now the second surprise. You cannot drive your own car into Kamikochi. Private cars have been banned on the access road for decades. Visitors arrive by bus or by taxi from parking areas lower down. This rule keeps the valley quiet and the air clean. It also changes how the place feels. There are no car engines here, and no traffic noise. You hear boots on gravel, voices in many languages, bells on hikers' packs, and always that running water.

Look at Taisho Pond, at the southern end of the valley. Dead tree trunks stand in the still water like grey posts. The pond is young. It formed in 1915, when nearby Mount Yake erupted. Mud and debris from the volcano blocked the Azusa River and flooded part of the forest. The drowned trees have slowly fallen over the past century, and the pond keeps changing its shape. Mount Yake is still an active volcano, and you can sometimes see a thin line of steam near its top.

The high peaks draw serious climbers from all over Japan. Yarigatake, whose name means spear peak, has a sharp pointed summit that you can recognise from far away. Hotaka is a group of linked peaks with a narrow, rocky ridge. Further north, in the Toyama part of the park, stand Tateyama and Tsurugi. Tateyama is one of the traditional sacred mountains of Japan. Tsurugi is known as one of the hardest major climbs in the country. These routes need real preparation and good weather.

The mountains are also home to animals that many visitors never expect to meet. Japanese macaques, the snow monkeys, often walk along the paths in Kamikochi and sit by the river. Please give them space and never feed them. Higher up, above the tree line, lives the rock ptarmigan, a small grouse that turns white in winter and mottled brown in summer. It is a protected species and an official symbol of Nagano. Asian black bears also live in these forests, so many hikers carry bells.

The seasons shape everything. In spring, snow lingers on the peaks while the valley turns green. Summer brings alpine flowers and the main climbing season. In autumn, the larches turn yellow and the maples turn red, and the cold air makes the river look even brighter. In winter, heavy snow closes the high roads, and Kamikochi shuts to normal visitors. The mountains then belong to the snow, the animals, and a few well-equipped winter mountaineers.

It helps to think of this park as a working landscape, not a museum. Mountain huts sit along the high trails, and staff carry supplies up by helicopter and on foot. Rangers repair paths and manage the crowds in peak season. In the north, the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route carries visitors by bus, cable car, and ropeway through the mountains, past the large Kurobe Dam. People have built here, but they have also chosen to protect a great deal of it.

Before you move on, stand still for one more minute. Look at the river at your feet and follow it upstream with your eyes. Notice how the colour changes where the water runs deep. Notice the granite at the top of the valley, and the line where the trees stop and bare rock begins. As you walk away, listen for the water again. It will follow you for a long time down the path, and it will still be running here tomorrow, long after the last bus has left.