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Myōkō-Togakushi Renzan NP, Nagano
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The jagged Togakushi wall began under an ancient sea: sediment hardened into rock, then rose and eroded into cliffs. Shell fossils still appear near the summit, high above the seabed where they formed.
At Mount Togakushi’s famous Ant’s Crossing (蟻の塔渡り), the ridge narrows to about 50 cm, with drops of roughly 200 m on both sides. The name belongs to a truly striking natural ridge.
A local legend says the god Tajikarao flung open Amaterasu’s cave door and sent it crashing to earth, where it became Mount Togakushi. The name is associated with a “hidden door.”
In 1904, Emily Weston became the first foreign woman known to climb Mount Togakushi; a photograph of her at the difficult Ant’s Crossing survives. A local Mrs Weston festival has been held since 1997.
Local tradition credits Togakushi’s ascetic monks with bringing buckwheat here as portable training food. The familiar cut-noodle form came much later, around the middle of the Edo period.
A Nagano City heritage study suggests that ancient shark-tooth fossils may have looked to ascetic pilgrims like demons’ claws or dragons’ fangs—and perhaps helped inspire Togakushi’s supernatural stories.
By the late Heian period, Togakushi’s Shugendō center was known in the capital and compared with Hieizan and Kōyasan. Its 3 temple precincts became the foundations of today’s Okusha, Chūsha and Hōkōsha.
Togakushi-shōma (Ranzania japonica) was first found on Mount Togakushi. This Japanese endemic is the only species in its genus, so the range’s name also marks a botanical discovery.
A dispute over the Togakushi flower’s scientific name sparked an 1888 botany scandal: Professor Ryokichi Yatabe barred Atsutaro Ito from his university lab. The episode became known as the Hamon-sō Incident (破門草事件).
In a rainmaking rite tied to Togakushi’s water deity, believers draw water from nearby Taneike, have it blessed at Togakushi Shrine, then carry it home without setting it down and pour it into their fields.
The bamboo baskets used for Togakushi soba are made from local nemagari bamboo, in a craft passed down since the early Edo period. Even an experienced artisan is said to make only 2 in a day.
Each autumn, local soba makers dress in white, prepare noodles by hand and present the new harvest at Togakushi Shrine. Here, the mountain community’s famous food becomes a ceremonial offering.
