From the postcard valley of Kamikochi, a two-day scramble leads to the sharpest summit in Japan's Northern Alps.
Kamikochi itself is almost too civilised to be a trailhead — a valley of clear glacial water and larch forest reachable only by bus, closed to private cars, and busy with day-trippers photographing the Azusa River. I left most of them behind within the first hour, following the river upstream through beech forest before the real climbing starts toward Yarisawa hut.
The final push to Yarigatake's summit is where the trip earns its reputation: a scramble up iron ladders and chains bolted into near-vertical rock, exposed enough that I was glad of the queue slowing everyone to single file at the crux. Mountain huts here run like small hotels, with futons, hot meals and beer for sale, which makes the Japan Alps a strange, comfortable version of high-altitude trekking.
Yarigatake's summit is small and often crowded at sunrise, so I got there the evening before instead and had the ridge nearly to myself. Reserve hut space ahead in peak season, late July to August — Japanese hiking holidays fill Yarisawa and Yarigatake-sanso lodges fast, and turning up without a booking means a long walk back down in the dark.
