Japanese Alps

The Japanese Alps (日本アルプス, Nihon Arupusu) are a collection of mountain ranges that cut across Honshu, Japan’s main island. For centuries, the towering peaks of central Honshu have been revered and visited as pilgrimage sites. Locals also harvested resources from these mountains—timber, fuel, fertilizer, animal feed, meat, minerals, and medicines. Pilgrims flocked to Buddhist temples in the ranges and to the sacred Mount Tate. The term “Japanese Alps” was first used by English archaeologist William Gowland, then popularized by English missionary Reverend Walter Weston (1861–1940). A plaque honoring Weston stands at Kamikōchi, a popular alpine resort. Originally, Gowland applied the name only to the Hida Mountains, but today it also includes the Kiso Mountains and Akaishi Mountains.

Long before Gowland’s label, the Japanese Alps served as a site for ascetic training by Buddhist monks and Shugenja. From the 1600s to the 1800s, samurai from the Kaga domain, guided by local hunters and farmers, ventured deep into the Hida Mountains to protect timber supplies. They created detailed maps of ridges, valleys, and vegetation—a survey known as Okuyama-mawari. Crossing the steep Hida range remains extremely difficult in winter, as it receives some of the world’s heaviest snowfall. A notable historical crossing occurred in the winter of 1584, when daimyō Sassa Narimasa’s forces traversed Zara Pass and Harinoki Pass, an event called “Sarasara-goe,” named after Sassa and Zara Pass.

These early surveys were largely unknown to modern Japanese mountaineers who later climbed for sport. As Kojima Usui recalled, “in those days,… no one knew even the names of the mountains, much less their locations or elevations. To go mountaineering was literally to strike out into the unknown country.” The first modern geological survey sheets appeared in 1890, but their topography was mostly guesswork. In 1891, foreign travelers could consult Basil Hall Chamberlain and W.B. Mason’s *Handbook for Travellers in Japan*, but Japanese climbers lacked a comparable guidebook for decades. During the 1890s, Japanese explorers physically mapped the ranges, dividing them into northern, central, and southern sections based on convention. William Gowland, an English geologist, was the first to see these mountains as a single, coherent landscape akin to the European Alps. His idea was later advanced by Walter Weston, who turned Gowland’s geographical concept into a proper noun.

Gowland explored parts of the ranges in the 1860s, becoming the first documented foreigner to climb Mount Yari and Mount Norikura. He was an archaeologist and explored for archaeological reasons. About twenty years later, Weston used Gowland’s notes to explore the same areas, guided by Kamijō kamonji, a mountain guide from Kamikōchi. Weston climbed Mount Shirouma, Mount Jōnen, Mount Kasa, Mount Hotaka, and other peaks. He documented two main mountain systems based on geological structure: the “China system,” linked to southeast China, and the “Karafuto system,” entering Japan from the north. Weston and Gowland are considered the first Western explorers of the range, and their detailed records helped popularize it.

In 1907, Yoshitaro Shibasaki and his team succeeded in climbing Mount Tsurugi, long considered Japan’s last unexplored and most difficult peak. At the summit, they found metal ornaments from a shugenja cane and a sword. Scientific analysis dated these artifacts to the late Nara period or early Heian period, proving that shugenja had climbed the mountain over 1,000 years earlier.

From the 1960s to the 1970s, transportation infrastructure in the Japanese Alps improved dramatically. The Komagatake Ropeway opened in 1967, the Shinhotaka Ropeway in 1970, and the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route fully opened in 1971. These developments made popular mountain areas far more accessible, drawing both climbers and tourists.

Today, the Japanese Alps include the Hida Mountains, the Kiso Mountains, and the Akaishi Mountains. Several peaks exceed 3,000 meters (9,843 feet)—the highest after Mount Fuji. The tallest are Mount Hotaka at 3,190 meters (10,466 feet) in the north and Mount Kita at 3,193 meters (10,476 feet) in the south. Mount Ontake, though generally not considered part of the Hida Mountains due to its distance, is often grouped with the Japanese Alps in guidebooks. It is an active volcano, most recently erupting in 2014.