73left Cedar Avenue of
Togakushi, Nagano
prefecture, JapanThere is a Japan beyond the hectic city
life of Tokyo, the technology, and the
stereotypes of geishas and men in suits.
We often speak of looking at the bigger
picture, and rightly so. In Japan, this
means venturing beyond the comforts of
the cities, exploring the rural hinterland,
and having the luxury of time to do so.
I found Takuya in the labyrinth that
is Tokyo Station. Once you’ve been
swallowed up inside this gargantuan
maze, you have no idea whether it is
night or day. A guide at Walk Japan,
Takuya, too, is far from at home in this
epicentre of urban chaos, and so he
spends the winter months out in the
mountains, sharing the quieter parts of
his homeland with guests.
From January to March, and
sometimes after, Japan’s aptly named
snow country is a winter wonderland.
Though there are some excellent
and well-publicised ski resorts in the
country, few foreigners realise that
Japan receives some of the heaviest
snowfall in the world, comparable
to that in Patagonia, Alaska, and the
Canadian Rockies. The difference
is, however, that whilst those areas
are sparsely populated, one-third of
Japan’s population lives in areas where
at any one time the snow can be up to
seven-metres deep. The environment
is extreme, but people living here have
adapted remarkably well, and Takuya
is passionate about reviving ancient
pilgrimage routes and forging new
paths through Japan’s magical,
wintery wonderland.
A party of 15, we boarded the
Shinkansen bullet train and raced
northwest from Tokyo to Nagano, the
concentration of skyscrapers giving
way to low-rise development and then
ultimately to rural areas. The hills
around Nagano city were already dusted
with snow. As we left the train tracks
behind and zigzagged by bus into the
mountains, the snow began to deepen.
Our destination was the ancient
pilgrimage site of Togakushi, a thicklyTogakushi, Japan