The Japan Alps: Snow Monkey Paradise by John Borthwick

The contrast is extreme, superb. We leave slate-grey Tokyo and its subways packed with comatose commuters, zip an hour or so north on a bullet train, hop on a bus, then step out into a bright new world. The Japan Alps sparkle all around, the Nagano light is clear and the snow slopes china-white.

Our first stop is no less than a monkey spa. We take a short hike through a dense, snow-clad pine forest near Shiga Kogen to a little spot called Jigokudani. The name means “Hell's Valley,” thanks to the numerous hot springs that vent Hades-like vapours into the wintry air. For the troop of 30 Japanese macaques revelling there, Jigokudani Monkey Park is, in fact, closer to monkey heaven.

The ground and air may be thick with snow but the red-faced “snow monkeys” (as they are known) scampering around the large natural onsen (hot spring pool) are un-perplexed. Firstly they simmer in the steaming waters, preening and nit-picking each other before climbing from the pool to — literally — chill out a while. Then it’s back into the hot tub to thaw out again, and repeat the whole process. This simian onsen is a delightful, spontaneous “show,” with the monkey families blithely ignoring us and our eager lenses. Amused and amazed, but also shivering with cold, some of us wish that we, too, could plunge into the monkey spa.

Nagano Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo on Japan’s main island of Honshu, is sometimes known as the Switzerland of the Orient. If Switzerland had 250 hot springs and 160 ski resorts, not to mention snow monkeys, it could be the Nagano of Europe. Like Europe’s, Japan’s alps are also a year-round destination — even if from around March to November the snow monkeys are snowless monkeys.

In these same alps the historic towns of Narai-juku and Tsumago-juku were part of an ancient post road and trade route that stretched from Kyoto to Edo (as Tokyo was then known). The arrival of railroads a century ago made many settlements along this mountain route redundant, causing them to fall into neglect. Belatedly realising their significance, in the 1970s the national government declared several towns as Protected Areas of Traditional Architecture. Now restored to their original appearance of the Edo period, these settlements constructed of wood, stone and slate, and exquisite craftsmanship, invite your inspection. On foot is the only proper way. To wander their streets is to stroll again through feudal Japan.

Narai-juku is the thirty-fourth of the sixty-nine stations of the old Nakasendo (“road through the central mountains”) route. Step into its historic area and time seems to have stood still for centuries. The Shogun's edicts are still displayed, numerous traditional lacquerware studios trade along the main street and many of the inter-connected row houses are still occupied by families whose descendants have lived there for centuries. There is, of course, a sake brewery.

Tsumago-juku, another town on the route, is somewhat more commercial than Narai. Known as one of the best-preserved post towns in the country, its residents have gone to great lengths to recreate Tsumago of the Edo Period, with cars and trucks banished from the main street during the day, and phone and power cables being well concealed. In this national Architectural Preservation Site all that seems lacking is a modern-day film crew shooting a samurai warrior battle scene in a “ramen western” epic.

Come winter, the Japan Alps transform into an endless web of ski runs, down which folk of all ages, duded up in much colour, rip and glide with gleeful, if not kamikaze cool. We’re here to sample two of the Nagano’s principal ski areas, Shiga Kogen and Hakuba, both of which hosted major events in the 1998 Winter Olympics. Shiga Kogen, Japan’s largest snow resort, has 21 ski and snowboard areas and some 70 lifts, ropeways and gondolas. “It would take at least four days to ski every run here,” says my guide.

The Hakuba Valley, with ten resorts, 160 lifts and 200 groomed trails, offers some of the longest vertical skiing in Japan, with runs of up to eight kilometres. I notice that the roads of the snow-bound resort seem curiously free of snow — with no clearing vehicles in sight. They are heated, I soon learn, by built-in electrical grids that warm the road surface to a constant snow-melting temperature.

One downside of skiing anywhere is the foreplay, so to speak, all the donning and juggling of hire gear. The poet Lord Byron once observed that, “When one subtracts from life infancy, sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning - how much remains of downright existence?” He might have been talking about skiing. (He answered his own question cuttingly: “The summer of a dormouse.”) Once I am all togged-up, a patient Japanese instructor spends several hours giving me a crash course in snowboarding. Crash course, indeed. Nevertheless, by the end I am combining both upright stance and downhill motion, and all at the same time. My more advanced companions head off to try Hakuba’s Winter Olympics alpine course, a 1900-metre route with a 1000-metre vertical drop.

Some hours later, back at the hotel, elated or deflated, bruised or ebullient, we are all soon equal in the eyes of the world — because we are stark naked. That is, one of the finest aspects of the Japan Alps is that any halfway good hotel or ryokan inn has its own onsen, a private hot spring. There are more than 250 such hot spring resorts in Nagano Prefecture, many with both indoor and outdoor pools. You scrub your weary body first then lower yourself into a pool that’s steaming like a kettle. Yes, onsen are segregated. No, you don’t emerge looking like a lobster. Perhaps more like a snow monkey.