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Myōkō-Togakushi Renzan NP, Niigata
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While clearing the route, local businessman Tsukuda Noboru found a pond filled with flowering skunk cabbage that looked like a mirage. He named the place Yumemidaira—“Dream-seeing Plain.”
This peaceful path follows a former forest railway bed. Lumber once traveled by horse-drawn carts along it to Kurohime Station, 20 km away—so today’s walkers are following an old working route.
The forest once had a small working community: a sawmill opened here in 1932 and employed about 100 people. Its residential area included an elementary school and extended to a shrine beside an old charcoal kiln.
A surprising chapter of the timber years: an official local trail account says workers brought foxes from Hokkaido to control rabbits that were eating tree saplings. It’s an unusual bit of forest-management history.
An Inari shrine hidden on a mountain path was rediscovered in 1991 and moved to its present spot. It is thought to date from the Edo period; local belief says Inari descends in spring to protect rice crops.
At Mino Pond, a stone frog statue commemorates the real spring event: frogs and Japanese black salamanders lay their eggs here in June. The Forestry Agency has also documented salamander egg clusters at Yumemidaira.
A side path leads to a katsura tree estimated to be 300 years old, 20 m tall and 3.5 m across. In autumn, its changing leaves are noted for their unexpectedly sweet fragrance.
Two great mizunara oaks along the trail are treated as sacred trees and named Kamihiko and Michihime. The Environment Ministry includes them among the memorable, shrine-like encounters along this “god-path.”
Yumemidaira sits at about 1,350 m, but official forest records say this gentle slope lay beneath a lake around 25,000 years ago. It’s a surprising past for a walk through today’s forest.
The trail’s second life has depended on local hands: the Yumemidaira Trail Preservation Society has volunteered to maintain it since 1992. Forestry staff also used thinned timber to build sections of boardwalk.
