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Chubu-Sangaku NP, Nagano / Toyama
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Karamatsuzawa Glacier lies on Mount Karamatsu’s northeast side: it is about 1.1 km long and up to 35 m thick. Measurements tracked it moving 2–2.5 m in a year.
Researchers measured the glacier’s movement to confirm it was flowing ice, not just an old snow patch. In one 29-day period it shifted as much as 25 cm; field teams left at 4:30 a.m. and returned after 7 p.m.
On the Happo Ridge leading east from Karamatsu, alpine plants grow unusually low. Serpentine rock helps keep forests at bay, favoring specialists such as endemic Happo thistle; some plants are remnants from the ice age.
The 4.5-m Happo Cairn on the Karamatsu approach remembers 5 students and 1 teacher lost in a 1980 winter accident. It was also built as a trail marker, tall enough to remain useful beneath deep snow.
On 16 December 1929, climbers Horita Yaichi and Henmi Masao, with local guide Takezawa Chōei, made Karamatsu’s first severe-winter ascent. The party summited Goryu the next day.
The Happo Ridge approach is also a scientific observation site: air-pollution monitoring for the East Asian acid-rain network began here in 1998.
Historical maps preserve older names for Karamatsu, including 上犬ヶ嶽 (Kami-inu-ga-dake) and ミカゲガ嶽 (Mikage-ga-dake). A mountain-history study tentatively identifies those labels with today’s peak.
A mountain hut called 唐松小屋 opened on Karamatsu in 1932. The present-day 唐松岳頂上山荘 grew from that early refuge on a key junction of the high ridge routes.
