Toyama · TateyamaNo.499★★★Open in map →
Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route
A crossing of the Northern Alps made entirely of cable cars, buses and a ropeway, ending on a plateau where the spring road is cut through standing snow. Walking the snow corridor at Murodo costs nothing; the transport that gets you there does.
- FromTateyama Station
- ~1 hrCable car, then highland bus
- Get off atMurodo Terminal (Tateyama Highland Bus)
- From there
- Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route
Where it is
8 more notes in Toyama · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Bijodairathe cable car's upper station, in old cedar forest, where the highland bus starts climbing
- Murodo Terminalthe arrival hall on the plateau and the highest station on the route
- The Yuki-no-Otani snow corridora channel cut through snow that reaches about 20 metres deep at the start of the season
- Mikurigaike Ponda crater pond on the plateau's walking loop, a short way from the terminal
- Daikanbo and the ropewaythe boarding point for the single-span descent to Kurobedaira, with no tower between the ends
How to actually get there
- Toyama (Dentetsu-Toyama) → Tateyama Station on the Toyama Chiho Railway.
- Tateyama Station → Bijodaira by cable car, 7 minutes.
- Bijodaira → Murodo by highland bus, 50 minutes.
- Murodo Terminal → the snow corridor on foot; return the same way, or carry on east towards Ogizawa.
- Cable car and highland bus from Tateyama Station
- Tateyama Station is the foot of the route and the end of the Toyama Chiho Railway line up from the city. The cable car climbs from there to Bijodaira, and the highland bus takes over for the long haul to Murodo — about an hour from the valley floor to the plateau.
- Back down to Tateyama Station
- Buses down from Murodo finish in the late afternoon and the timetable moves with the season, so read the return before you leave the terminal. If you have crossed to the Nagano side there is no way back over the mountains after the last service; returning means a long road journey around the range.
About the place
The route covers 37.2 kilometres from the Toyama side into Nagano, and climbs and drops 1,975 metres on the way. You cross it by changing from one vehicle to the next: a cable car up from the valley, a highland bus over the plateau road, tunnel buses bored through the range, a ropeway hung across a slope with no tower in the middle. The high point is Murodo, at 2,450 metres, where the buses stop and everyone gets out. Snow lands here in quantities that do not melt until midsummer, so the road across the plateau is reopened each spring by cutting a channel through it.
How to enjoy it
Come between mid-April and late June if the wall is the point: it is at its highest when the route first opens and lower every week after that. The vehicles run to a timetable rather than continuously, so build the day around the buses — an hour up, an hour back, and whatever you give the plateau in between. Anyone crossing to Nagano should start early, because the through journey takes most of a day.
Background & history
The route exists because of a dam. Kansai Electric spent about seven years building Kurobe Dam deep inside these mountains, finishing it in 1963, and the hardest part of the job was getting materials to the site at all. Tunnels were driven through the range and lifts were built up the slopes to carry cement and steel. When the work ended the infrastructure stayed. The cable car still runs with a freight platform from those years, and the tunnel buses still use a supply tunnel dug for the dam.
Before you go
- Cash
- The snow corridor itself has no entrance charge — what you pay for is the transport. The operator's published fares put a Tateyama Station to Murodo return at 12,300 yen for an adult, and the full crossing from Tateyama to Ogizawa at 10,940 yen one way, as listed at the time of checking. Tickets are sold at the stations and online.
- Before you go
- The whole route shuts for winter and reopens in mid-April, with the snow-corridor walk running from then until late June; services finish again in the autumn. Sections can stop at short notice in wind, snow or thunder. The plateau is far colder than the coast, so a coat is worth carrying even in summer.
- Another way
- From the Nagano side the start is Ogizawa, reached by bus from Shinano-Omachi, and the first leg is the tunnel bus to Kurobe Dam. Plenty of travellers cross in one direction and continue out the other side rather than doubling back.
- After you get off
- Murodo Terminal is the building the bus pulls into, and the snow corridor begins on the road just outside it, a few minutes on foot. The plateau's walking loop past the ponds starts from the same doors.