Joshin’etsukogen National Park - Mt. Tanigawadake Region
Joshin’etsukogen National Park was established in 1949. As of 2020, it is the fourth-largest national park in Japan, spanning 148,194 hectares of Gunma, Niigata, and Nagano Prefectures. The diverse landscapes and myriad wildlife of Joshin’etsukogen perfectly fit the definition of a national park as “a landscape that is representative of Japan.” The park includes impressive mountains like Mt. Asama (2,568 m) in the south and Mt. Naeba (2,145 m) in the north, as well as crater lakes, verdant marshland, brisk highlands, and numerous hot springs. For the sheer scale and variety of the park’s natural environments, including mountains and highlands, the region has been called an “outdoor recreation world” of hiking, skiing, camping, and other outdoor activities.
In the park’s northeast, the Tanigawa Mountain Range straddles the border between Gunma and Niigata. The range was uplifted beginning some 4.4 million years ago, after which erosion by water, snow, and glacial movement carved out its characteristic U-shaped valleys. The steep, craggy mountain faces created by this process make the mountain range a harsh environment for the local flora and fauna.
Mt. Tanigawadake (1,977 m) itself is known as a mecca for hikers and rock climbers. To facilitate easy travel to the mountain peaks, a ropeway linking the foothills to the mountain ridge at Tenjindaira was built in 1960 and has been upgraded several times.