Mt. Tsurugi (Tsurugidake, 2,999m) is widely considered the hardest single peak in Japan. It stands in the Tateyama Range of the Northern Alps, and it has a nickname that tells you what to expect: the “Hall of Rock and Snow.”
For a long time it was thought to be unclimbable. When the Imperial Japanese Army’s survey teams were completing the national map in the Meiji era, Mt. Tsurugi was the last gap left in the triangulation network, and the first recorded ascent did not happen until 1907. That story was later made into a film, The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones (2009).
Today the mountain has a good hut system, and the 13 worst sections of rock are fitted with chains. People still die here every year.
I climbed it with my son and two teammates, four of us in all, over three days and two nights in excellent weather, and we continued over the main Tateyama peaks to close the route as a loop. What follows is what the climb is actually like: how to plan it, which hut to use, what the 13 chain sections involve, and how I judged the terrain with a child along.
What makes Mt. Tsurugi hard
The difficulty is in the terrain, not the effort.
From the hut to the summit is 1.8km one way with about 500m of gain, and it still takes over three hours, because almost all of it is rock. The 13 worst places are fitted with chains and iron bars driven into the face. Several are close to vertical, and a few require traversing rock above a drop.
A useful reference point for visitors: this is closer to a via ferrata without a clip-in system than to a hiking trail. It does not take much fitness. It does not leave much margin either.
There are two routes up:
- The Bessan Ridge route — what most people use, including us. It starts from Murodo, the high point of the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route.
- The Hayatsuki Ridge route — from Babajima, and considerably more demanding physically.
Getting to Mt. Tsurugi
Access is the same as for the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, the well-known sightseeing crossing. You can enter from Toyama on the west side or Ogizawa on the east, and either way you start walking from Murodo (2,450m), the highest point on the route.
From Toyama Station:
- Toyama Chiho Railway to Tateyama Station — about 1 hour 10 minutes
- Tateyama Cable Car to Bijodaira — 7 minutes
- Tateyama Highland Bus to Murodo — about 1 hour
With waiting and transfers, allow 2 to 3 hours. Toyama is reached from Tokyo by Hokuriku Shinkansen, so the connection is straightforward for visitors.
Planning it as a three-day loop
Three days and two nights works well, and I would connect the main Tateyama peaks — Oyama, Onanji and Fujinooritate — into a loop rather than walking back the way you came. The third day costs an extra three to four hours and gives you the best views of the trip, and you come away with two of Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains (Hyakumeizan) instead of one.
One difference worth explaining for anyone used to permit systems elsewhere: Japan has no advance lottery for entering the mountains. What you do is submit a climbing plan (tozan-todoke) with your personal details and your intended route. Huts are also common here, so outside weekends you are not competing for a bed. Privately run huts are not cheap, but you get the facilities and the convenience.
Kenzanso, the closest hut to the summit
Two huts inside the cirque suit a Tsurugi climb: Kenzanso, which is nearer the summit, and Tsurugisawa Hut on the far side of the basin. They are about 20 minutes apart.
We used Kenzanso. It is well equipped, clean and comfortable, and the staff were warm. Alongside the drying room, shop and dining room that any Japanese hut has, there is beer, soft drinks and coffee. The unusual part is the shower room, with hot water in the afternoon (no soap or other products allowed) — not something you often find at this altitude. The four of us had a room to ourselves, with a power outlet.
Half-board is ¥14,000 per person. You can book online and pay by credit card. Kenzanso also rents climbing helmets.
Day 1 — Murodo to Kenzanso
The first day starts with a walk across the Murodo plateau, and it is a walk rather than a climb. Murodo is the main attraction of the whole Alpine Route and the high point of the standard sightseeing trip. Japan’s highest hot-spring inn is up here, and the famous snow corridor in April and May is in this same area.
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The path is well built, and it passes Mikurigaike, Jigokudani and Chinoike, along with the inns, huts and campground up here. Jigokudani means Hell Valley, and you smell the sulfur well before you reach it.
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Past the Raichozawa campground you cross a small stream and finally start climbing, up to Tsurugi-gozen Goya, a hut on the Bessan ridge. That took us about three hours from Murodo, and we stopped there for lunch around midday.
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The ridge running south from Tsurugi turns east at Tsurugi-gozen Goya to join the Bessan ridge, and together the two enclose a cirque that opens to the northeast. Both huts sit inside it.
The descent into that basin should have been the scenic part of the day. Instead we got a thunderstorm. Lightning was striking not far ahead of us, and we stopped caring about the view or about the trail turning into a waterfall and a string of pools. We put our heads down and ran for Kenzanso.
Day 2 — the 13 chain sections of Mt. Tsurugi
On paper the second day looks easy: out and back from Kenzanso, 1.8km each way, 500m of gain. It is the most serious day of the trip. Most people take about six hours round trip; we took seven, plus another hour spent eating and messing around on the summit.
We left straight after breakfast to stay ahead of the afternoon storms. Because we were based at Kenzanso, we could do the day with light packs.
The route crosses two lesser peaks — Ippuku-tsurugi and Mae-tsurugi — before the summit itself.
- Chains 1 and 2, below Ippuku-tsurugi: no real difficulty.
- Once over Ippuku-tsurugi, a large and intimidating peak appears ahead. Do not be fooled — that is not Tsurugi, it is Mae-tsurugi.
- Chains 3 and 4, just below the top of Mae-tsurugi: harder than the first two, but still not what I would call difficult.
The real climbing starts above Mae-tsurugi. Between there and the summit the dangerous ground is split by direction: chains 5 to 9 are on the way up, chains 10 to 13 are on the way down, and chains 1 to 4 are walked in both directions.
Chain 5 is the traverse you can see from a long way off. You cross a short metal bridge first — not hard, but worth care in wind — and then move out onto the face. It looks alarming. In practice the footholds are obvious, and with a firm grip on the chain and careful feet it is not that hard. This is where I clipped my son onto the chain.
Chains 7 and 9 are close to vertical. Along with the chain there are iron bars set into the rock as steps, and with hands on the chain and feet on the bars, going up is not a problem.
Chain 10, the first one on the descent, was the one that scared me. The trail simply ends at a vertical face. You cannot see the footholds at first — they are out on the wall itself — so you take the chain, hang off it, and feel for them with your feet, all of it done on vertical rock. That is the stretch where I was glad we had brought gear to clip in with. Immediately after it comes an aluminum ladder going straight down.
It is worth saying that the danger is not confined to the chains. Between Mae-tsurugi and the summit the trail spends much of its time on knife-edge ridge and along the edge of drops. You do not get to switch off.
On gear: a climbing helmet is essential, and Kenzanso rents them. A via ferrata set is not required, but having climbed the route, there are one or two traverses where it earns its place, and I would bring one for the extra margin.
The summit of Mt. Tsurugi, at 2,999m, is a field of broken rock, much of it large, with a shrine and that famous triangulation point on it. The peak stands alone, so the view is unobstructed in every direction.
We had excellent weather for it, and we were back at the hut in time for a relaxed afternoon tea.
Day 3 — the Tateyama ridge back to Murodo
On the third day you can retrace your steps to Murodo, or spend an extra three to four hours going back along the main Tateyama ridge to close the loop. We took the ridge.
From Kenzanso it is 20 minutes to Tsurugisawa Hut, then a climb up the side of the cirque to the Bessan ridge — about an hour and a half, and the hardest part of the day. Once you are on the ridge it is a different landscape altogether.
The views from this ridge were the best of the three days. On one side you look out to Toyama Bay on the Sea of Japan and down over the whole of Murodo. On the other is the Ushiro-Tateyama Range running parallel to you, with the Kurobe Gorge and the Kurobe Dam between the two ranges.
From there the ridge runs on without much climbing, over Bessan, Masago, Fujinooritate, Onanji and Oyama, then drops steeply off Oyama back to Murodo. After the previous day this is easy ground, and the views are hard to beat. Around eight hours in total.
How hard is it, really
Star ratings and comparisons to other mountains are not much use here. It is more useful to describe the conditions. Between the top of Mae-tsurugi and the summit, the route is almost continuously on rock, on knife-edge ridge, or along the edge of a drop, and a slip has nothing to stop it. What it asks for is tolerance of exposure, the ability to move steadily using hands and feet together, and enough composure to feel for footholds you cannot see, on vertical rock. It does not ask for endurance. Someone of average fitness who stays calm will get through it. Someone very fit who is afraid of heights will have a bad day.
My son has already done a fair number of scrambling routes back in Taiwan. He still says Mt. Tsurugi is the hardest mountain he has climbed.
One last judgement call: if it were raining and the choice were mine, I would turn back rather than take on technical ground. Every safety fixture on this mountain assumes dry rock.
