KAMIKOCHI, Nagano Prefecture -- In his novel "The House of Nire," Morio Kita writes, "In the already fading light the linked peaks of the Alps were solid and harsh, all ranged there in the early dusk like a huge folding screen."
One of the most ravishing panels of that folding screen described in Kita's novel, snow-dusted or gilded with sunlight according to the season, is Mount Hotaka and the high valley of Kamikochi at its foot. The valley is a part of the Chubu-Sangaku National Park in the region of Nagano Prefecture known as Azumi.
Writers have often observed while on the road in Japan that the pleasures of the journey far exceed the realities of a destination. In the case of Kamikochi and the approach to the valley through a landscape of exceptional beauty, you get the pleasure of both. The road enters the park past shallow, pebble-strewn streams, orchards and green meadows, and is then funneled down the dizzy Azusagawa Gorge.