Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

Route Through Chubu Sangaku National Park; Fully Opened In 1971 · Tateyama, Toyama

A high mountain crossing of the Northern Alps between Toyama and Nagano, climbing to 2,450 metres at Murodo by a chain of cable cars, buses, a ropeway and tunnel buses, with private cars kept out of the whole central section. From Tateyama station on the Toyama side a cable car climbs to Bijodaira, a highland bus crosses the Midagahara plateau to Murodo, and a bus through a tunnel under Mount Tateyama reaches Daikanbo. A ropeway with no towers between its stations drops to Kurobedaira, an underground cable car descends to Lake Kurobe, and you walk across the top of the Kurobe Dam, the tallest in Japan at 186 metres, before a last tunnel bus runs to Ogizawa for Omachi in Nagano. The route is famous for the Yuki-no-Otani snow corridor near Murodo, where the road is cut through walls of snow that can stand 15 metres or more in spring. Summer brings alpine flowers, the crater pond of Mikurigaike, rock ptarmigan and the climb of Mount Oyama. It opens only from about mid-April to late November.

Murodo, Ashikuraji, Tateyama, Toyama, 930-1414, Japan

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the route opens around mid-April and closes around late November, and is shut all winter. Transport runs from early morning, around 7 am, to late afternoon, with shorter hours in spring and late autumn; the last departures across the whole route leave early in the afternoon, and missing them can leave you stranded on the wrong side. The ropeway stops in high wind. Confirm current dates, first and last departures and the snow-wall walk window before relying on them.

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