Hotakadake
Hotakadake: Japan's Third-Highest Peak, Two Days from Kamikochi
A horseshoe of rock peaks around the Karasawa cirque, topped by Okuhotaka at 3,190 m, the highest...
Mount Asama
An Active Volcano Where the Alert Level Decides How Far You Climb
The 2,568-meter volcano that smokes behind Karuizawa, on the Nagano and Gunma border. The crater ...
Michi-no-Eki Utsukushigahara Kogen
Japan's highest roadside station, open only from spring to autumn
At the end of the Venus Line, this station sits at roughly 1,930 m on the Utsukushigahara plateau...
Mount Ontake
Mount Ontake: A Ropeway to 2,150 m and a Summit Open Only in Summer
A 3,067-meter active volcano on the Nagano and Gifu border, the second-highest volcano in Japan a...
Nozawa Onsen
Thirteen Free Village Baths Kept by the Residents, and a Fire Festival Every 15 January
A hot spring village in northern Nagano with 13 public bathhouses, the soto-yu, that anyone may u...
Lake Nojiri
Lake Nojiri: Ice Age Elephants Dug from the Lakebed by Volunteers
Nagano's second-largest lake after Suwa, near the Niigata border, where Naumann elephant fossils ...
Lake Suwa
A Lake at 759 m Known for Its August 15 Fireworks and Onsen Town
Nagano's largest lake, about 16 km round, with the hot-spring town of Kami-Suwa on its eastern sh...
Michi-no-Eki Raiden Kurumi-no-Sato
Walnuts and a sumo legend on the Asama Sunline
A stop on the Asama Sunline in Tomi, a town known for walnuts. Buy walnut sweets and Shinshu soba...
Akiyamago
Akiyamago: Thirteen Snowbound Hamlets Up the Nakatsu River, and a Riverbed You Dig Your Own Bath In
Thirteen hamlets strung about 20 km along the Nakatsu River gorge, five in Sakae village (Nagano)...
Yarigatake
Yarigatake: Two Days from Kamikochi, Then Ladders to a 3,180 m Spire
The 3,180-meter spear-shaped peak of the Northern Alps, fifth-highest in Japan, usually climbed o...
Ueda Castle
The Sanada clan’s stronghold is remembered for resisting the Tokugawa armies twice. Today Ueda’s ...
Mount Yake
Mount Yake: A Day Hike up the Live Volcano That Made Taisho Pond
The active volcano on the Nagano and Gifu border above Kamikochi, climbed as a day hike to its 2,...
Shimoguri no Sato
Shimoguri no Sato: A Hamlet on 38-Degree Slopes Above the Toyama Valley
A farming hamlet in the Toyama valley of southern Iida, its houses and potato fields spread over ...