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Joshin’etsukogen NP, Nagano / Gunma
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Roughly 600,000 azaleas blanket Yunomaru’s slopes, designated a National Natural Monument in 1956. The flower sea has a pastoral twist: after a ranch opened in 1904, cattle ate competing plants but left the poisonous blooms.
Snowed in at Kazawa Onsen below Yunomaru in 1927, climber Eizaburo Nishibori and 3 friends created “Yukiyama Sanka”: Japanese mountain lyrics fitted to the tune of “Oh My Darling, Clementine.”
After commercial grazing waned from 1975, shrubs shaded the azaleas and their numbers fell 78%, to roughly 200,000. A 2024 park account reported over 600,000 again, with volunteers and conservation cattle helping keep grassland open.
Yunomaru’s Japanese azaleas can have 2–8 petals, rather than the usual 5, and their vermilion color grows more vivid with altitude. The 2,101-m summit is the highest elevation where they grow in central Japan.
Yunomaru and neighboring Eboshi stand on the oldest, western edge of the Asama-Eboshi volcanic range. Geological dating indicates activity began in the west about 1 million years ago, then shifted east toward Mount Asama.
A 12-km route over Yunomaru’s Jizo Pass led Shinshu bathers to Kazawa Onsen, marked by 100 Kannon statues about 110 m apart. Built in 1864–1873, statue No. 81 stands at the pass between Nagano and Gunma.
Skiing at Yunomaru’s foot dates to 1928, when Kazawa Onsen innkeeper Kobayashi Kamezo opened a slope. Nearby, the Kazawa–Takamine “Seven-Thousand-Shaku” route is a classic ski tour.
