Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route Iconic Snow Tour Reopens for Tourists

JAKARTA - The iconic snow-covered Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, which is closed during the winter, reopened to tourists last Wednesday.

The iconic one-way route connecting Tateyama City in Toyama Prefecture and Omachi City in Nagano Prefecture in the Northern Alps by bus, ropeway and cable car is open until the end of November.

Snow walls formed by snow removal work in the Murodo Plateau at an altitude of 2,450 meters reached a height of 12 meters this year, according to a local transport company, quoted from Kyodo News (24/4).

Tourists take photos at a snow corridor called "Yuki no Otani" as light snow falls.

Yoshie Yamanaka (60) who visited from Nagareyama, Chiba Prefecture said he was touched when he saw the snow wall for the first time.

"I didn't expect the wall to be this high," he said.

Meanwhile, Tomohiko Takibayashi of the transportation company Tateyama Kurobe Kanko Co. said, "The height of the wall itself is an attraction, but if you look at the layer of snow, you can see yellow sand and ice grains inside, which shows the weather conditions (last winter)."

Quoted from the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route website, this route was first built in 1952, in conjunction with the construction of the cable car which began in December of the same year, before it was fully opened in June 1971.

The opening of the route, which stretches over 37 kilometers, was preceded by a ceremony at Ogizawa Station, Omachi, the departure point of the route on the Nagano side, quoted from NHK World.

Participants celebrated the reopening of the route by opening a paper ball that was hung to release a flow of colorful ribbons and releasing buses that crossed the route.

Officials said this year's snow wall reached a peak of 12 meters, four meters lower than last year.

Tateyama Kurobe Kanko, which manages the route, said the route attracted about 845,000 tourists last season.

President of Tateyama Kurobe Kanko, Mikado Kaname, said many events are being planned to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the full opening of the route. He hopes many people will enjoy this trip again this year.