Thursday, August 30, 2012

Tateyama Kurobe Alpine route


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The Tateyama Kurobe alpine route is a mountain route between Tateyama in Toyama and Omachi in Nagano. The route opened in 1971 is 37 km long, ascending 1,795m.
The route uses several transport methods to cover the route without damaging the environment.

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I started the route from Ogisawa station on the Omachi side of the route; from there a trolleybus connects this station with kurobedam station, in a 16 minutes ride through a tunnel. This line, together with the one on the Tateyama tunnel trolleybus are the only remaining trolleybus lines in Japan.

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Kurobe dam the highest in Japan provides dramatics views of the Tateyama range and the North alpine, the dam 186 meters high concrete wall is an impressive view, especially when is discharging water.

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After a 15 minutes’ walk to next station, kurobeko, you can ride the kurobe cable car to kurobedaira in a short 5 minutes tunnel ride.

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From Kurobedaira, the tateyama ropeway will take you to daikanbo in a 7 minutes breathtaking ride.

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From Daikanbo another trolley ride using a tunnel connects to Murodou, the Tateyama station at 2450 meters. Next to the station, the Tateyama hotel is the highest resort in Japan.
There are several hiking routes from this station, for all levels of expertise.
From Murodou a bus takes you to Biyodaira, during the spring, the snow corridor is open to pedestrians, this year the snow wall reached 17 m, I skipped this part of the trip as it was out of season already.
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The Alpine route is one of the best ways to escape the summer heat of Tokyo, and enjoy the fantastic views from the Japanese Alps.