Kurobe-Tateyama

We went to visit the Kurobe- Tateyama Alpine Pass bordering the Nagano and Toyama prefectures. We drove to Ogizawa Station (about 3 1/2 hours from Tokyo on a Saturday morning) and bought tickets that would take us through the pass through various modes of transport.

The first part of the trip was on a trolley bus that went through a tunnel from Ogizawa Station to the Kurobe Dam. It took 16 minutes to traverse the 5.4km Kanden tunnel.

The tunnel was built in the late 1950's to supply everything that was needed to build the dam in the next valley. Six buses at a time depart the station and follow each other into the tunnel. Halfway through the tunnel, the single lane spreads to double to allow two convoys of six buses to pass each other.

Once we arrived at the Kurobe Dam Station, we walked down a long tunnel to the dam .

The view down the lake was beautiful. The spring melt had only begun, so the lake levels were low. It will fill up once the snow all goes.

 Kurobe dam is the tallest dam in Japan. Construction began in 1956 and the dam was fully operational in 1963 (50th anniversary this year!). 171 men died in it's construction

We walked across the dam top

Our next mode of transport was cable car. This cable car travels 800m and vertically 373m.

Two cars passed each other on the cable car run and met in the tunnel at halfway.

At the top of the the cable car was Kurodebaira Station. Spectacular views across the valley and back down to the dam.

The varied travel experience continued with the next part of the trip being by ropeway. the ropeway traverses 1.7km and lifted us another 488m higher.

We were the last of 80 people to squeeze into our car

This is the uphill station at Daikanbo.

80 people going the other way

The last part of our trip was another trolley bus through a 3.7km tunnel to Mt Tateyama and the station near the top.

We found a hiking path carved through the snow. Everyone wrote their names in the wall.

All sorts of people at the top of Tateyama.

We hiked in the snow around the stunningly colourful Mikuriga Pond, created from a volcanic explosion.

We got back to the Tateyama Hotel car park and set off to discover the road to the highest hotel in Japan.

The snow here is at Murodo is 16 metres deep. The road otani no yuki opened in April and snow starts pouring in again in October.

This valley is incredibly spectacular. The depth of snow is amazing.

We caught the trolley bus, ropeway, cable car, walk and trolley bus back to the bottom. Round trip was just short of six hours from Ogizawa station return. A fantastaic day!!!