Kitahodaka

A mountain hut on the rock crest just below the summit of Kitahotakadake (3,106m) — a minute's walk from the top. It was built by the previous keeper, Yoshiharu Koyama, from 1948, the materials carried up on people's backs over more than two years, on this spot overlooking the precipice of Takidani. On the Gifu side to the west, Takidani drops several hundred metres — one of Japan's great rock faces, famously described by the guide Kamonji Kamijo as a place "not even birds cross". North the ridge runs out along the Daikiretto to Minamidake and Yarigatake, south it goes to Karasawadake and Okuhotakadake, and east the Nanryo ridge drops to the Karasawa cirque. The hut is surrounded by a 360-degree view and is among the highest in Japan. It is small and water is precious, so there is never much of it to spare — something the keepers ask guests to accept as part of the character of the place. The season runs 28 April to 3 November. The campsite on the Nanryo ridge, ten minutes down toward Karasawa, has twenty pitches and faces Maehotakadake head-on.