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Towada-Hachimantai NP, Iwate / Akita
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Along the 27-km Aspite Line, spring snow walls can reach 8 m; JNTO calls it Japan’s longest snow corridor. Wall height changes from year to year with snowfall and weather.
A careful survey comes first; excavators cut a starter path, bulldozers push snow to rotary blowers, and a final pass shaves the walls smooth. The dramatic corridor is shaped by a careful sequence of machines.
The buried road’s curves were so hard to read that safe operation took 10+ years to master. A 2024 trial used 3D maps and satellite positioning accurate to centimeters—even in whiteout conditions.
Hachimantai can hold 2 seasons at once: snow walls linger into May while sakura bloom at the foothills, especially from Golden Week through mid-May—a striking spring overlap.
The Hachimantai Aspite Line opened as a toll road on August 15, 1970. Toll collection ended in 1992, so the spring snow passage follows a route that began life as a paid drive.
