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Minami Alps NP, Yamanashi / Nagano
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Above Kitazawa Pass, Uma-no-se Hut on the Senjō-ga-take trail serves venison curry. Its cook says using deer meat is one small way to support conservation in a mountain where deer browse on alpine plants.
A conservation fight froze the last 1.6 km of the road at Kitazawa Pass in 1973, six years after work began. Construction restarted in 1978 with safeguards, and the cross-mountain road opened in 1979.
Chōei Takezawa, the guide who built the pass's first hut, also surveyed Sakhalin with Kyoto Imperial University explorers in 1932. He later reportedly stressed that geology matters in unfamiliar mountains.
In 1941, as wartime conditions thinned the ranks of climbers, local guide Chōei Takezawa cut a gentler route to Senjō-ga-take, hoping women could climb the mountain more safely, too.
Before becoming a celebrated guide, Chōei Takezawa was a skilled bear hunter nicknamed Kuma-chō, or Bear Chō. He later built Kitazawa Pass's first hut in 1930 and opened trails into the surrounding peaks.
Kitazawa Pass takes its name from the Kitazawa stream, a tributary of the Noro River on the Yamanashi side. The name follows the watercourse at the foot of this high border saddle.
When the mountain road opened in 1980, it was no private-car shortcut: general traffic was barred, and seasonal municipal buses from both sides turned around at Kitazawa Pass.
The Ministry of the Environment lists 6 fenced plots around Kitazawa Pass—3 at 2,000 m and 3 at 2,500 m—to help measure how Japanese deer are grazing on alpine vegetation.
At the annual Chōei Festival, the ridge becomes a meeting place for both prefectures: schoolchildren from Nagano's Hase and Yamanashi's Ashiyasu have sung together there. In 2018, the festival reached its 60th year.
At the 2012 Chōei Festival, climbers received wooden tags stamped with Senjō-ga-take, made from boards salvaged from the original 1930 hut that Takezawa built at Kitazawa Pass.
A June 2020 survey around Kitazawa Pass surprised an Environment Ministry ranger with a skunk cabbage, or zazensō, named for its hooded bloom's resemblance to a Buddhist monk seated in meditation.
A visitor study found the 1980 bus link changed Kitazawa Pass from a relay point on long mountain traverses into a climbing base. Later surveys also recorded more women and middle-aged hikers arriving.
