The Japanese Alps: still on our bucket list

After getting citied-out in Tokyo, we were eager to get into the mountains. The skies were grey on our train ride out of the city, but we were optimistic about adventures! Climbing and hiking in “the Yosemite of Japan” were on the agenda, but mother nature had other ideas.

Our first stop was Matsumoto, which is best known for a beautiful castle of the same name. Our guesthouse was a short walk from the castle, so we visited twice! We explored the castle grounds and gorgeous wooden interior, and then stopped back in the evening on our post-soba noodle stroll.

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As is tradition, there’s a cute mascot.

The next morning was the start of our journey to Ogawayama – one of the most famous rock climbing areas in Japan. Two trains, a bus, and an hour long walk later, we arrived at our ryokan in the woods. We felt lucky to wait out the rain in the comfort of the guesthouse – complete with two delicious home cooked meals per day and an onsen! The region grows tons of lettuce so each meal was served with the most crispy lettuce we’ve ever tasted!

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Lettuce fields from the train.
Dinner at our guesthouse, Fresh lettuce!

After our traditional breakfast we borrowed crash pads and set off for a day of bouldering – the rock on longer routes was certainly still wet. The bouldering was hard – the easiest route we found was a V3/4, and in between attempts we watched expert Japanese climbers work hard problems, landing on the cleanest crash pads in the world.

Well… we’re not climbing those.. 🙁
We found AN easy problem, yay!

With the weather forecast looking grim for the next ten days, we departed the rainy climbing area for Nagano to visit the temple before making our way north.

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Zenko-ji temple, Nagano

We’ll be back for more climbing and hiking the alps (hopefully with better weather)!

2 Replies to “The Japanese Alps: still on our bucket list”

  1. Just caught up on the last 4 months of blog posts while flying from the Cape. Made the 4 hour plane ride a breeze! What an absolutely incredible adventure and amazing photos you guys have taken. Miss you two!

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