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Minami Alps NP, Yamanashi
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
In the Edo period, Hirogawara’s timber made an extraordinary journey: logs floated down the Norogawa, Hayakawa and Fujikawa rivers toward the sea. Wood from here helped repair Edo Castle in 1834.
A 2025 refresh added live rain radar projected onto a landscape model, turning weather into a miniature mountain scene. The new displays are framed around challenge, enjoyment and protection.
Across the river, the katsura grove’s fallen leaves are said to smell faintly sweet. The local trail map lists trees estimated at 180 years old, up to 34.5m tall, with trunks as much as 12.3m around.
You can see Kitadake, Japan’s second-highest mountain, from the short path between the center and the suspension bridge to the trailhead—even if you’re not setting out to climb it.
The center’s conservation displays connect to what you can spot outside: in Hirogawara Park, deer browsing clips forest-floor plants, while bucks rubbing their antlers can strip tree bark.
Before the information center opened, its site held Alpen Plaza Hirogawara. The new building opened on June 15, 2010; its opening ceremony followed at the Minami Alps mountain-opening festival on June 27.
Even this remote mountain center was designed with a lighter footprint: the Ministry of the Environment lists solar power, an ozone-treatment toilet and a pellet stove among the building’s features.
