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Oze NP, Gunma
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At Hatomachi Pass, Hoshino’s café serves its signature flower-bean soft serve. Katashina’s prized hana-mame beans are also preserved the old-fashioned way: steeped in syrup for nearly a month.
Local lore gives Hatomachi (“pigeon-waiting”) 2 origins: woodcutters left winter camps when spring doves called, or warrior Minamoto no Yoshiie released pigeons here to divine his luck.
In 2025, counters recorded 111,107 entries on Hatomachi’s 3 trail directions—Ozegahara, Mt. Shibutsu and Ayamedaira—about 65% of Oze National Park’s 171,821 recorded entries.
Before vast Ozegahara, the 3.3-km trail from Hatomachi passes Tenma Marsh, a small wetland and the first marsh hikers meet; skunk cabbage grows there. The route begins with a steep descent through forest.
Yotsuba-hiyodori blooms around the Hatomachi rest shelter in summer—and it is a favorite nectar source for the asagi-madara, a migratory butterfly.
In 1963, the road from Tokura reached Hatomachi Pass and minibus service began, an early chapter in the pass’s transformation into one of Oze’s main gateways.
