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Chichibu-Tama-Kai NP, Yamanashi
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The park’s grounds once hosted Japan’s 52nd National Tree-Planting Festival, on May 20, 2001. The Emperor and Empress attended the ceremony in Sutama, before this event site became a place for visitors to enjoy the mountain.
The forest around the park is being guided toward its local character: Yamanashi’s plan calls for restoring birch groves, adding broad-leaved trees to larch stands, and keeping natural forest wherever possible.
“Mizugaki” means a fence around a Shinto shrine; the name is also written 瑞垣 or 瑞塁. The jagged mountain rising above the park has long been revered, so its name calls to mind a sacred enclosure.
Look beyond the great granite peaks: the park’s woods also have scattered rocks about 3–5 m tall, popular with boulderers. Some of the climbing fun is right among the trees, not only high on the mountain.
On Mt. Mizugaki, the Kanmanboron cliff has about 10 hollows running vertically, in a formation around 7 m high. Local tradition says sacred Sanskrit was carved there; weathering has made the marks unreadable.
The park’s campsite is used by climbers tackling Mt. Mizugaki’s granite walls. Route-making there began with a 1970 first ascent of Ō-Yasuri-iwa; by 1981, a pitch of “Haru Urara” had been free-climbed.
