Kamikōchi is an eighteen-kilometre highland valley in the Northern Japanese Alps of Nagano, closed to private cars since 1975, where a blue-green river runs below the Hotaka peaks, the third-highest mountains in Japan. You ride in by bus and then walk, on level paths beside the Azusa. The picture is taken from Kappa-bashi, a wooden suspension bridge at the valley's centre with the Hotaka range lined up behind the clear water. It is named for the kappa, the mischievous water goblins of Japanese rivers, and gave its name in turn to a satirical novel of 1927. In it a hiker crossing here tumbles into the goblins' upside-down society and finds it sharper than his own. It is also the busiest spot in the valley. Japanese macaques forage along the banks right beside the trail, trout hold steady in the cold current, and the ducks pass you without interest; nothing here is ever fed.
Downstream lies a pond that was made overnight. In 1915 Yakedake, the smoking peak above the valley and the only active volcano in the Northern Alps, sent debris down its slopes and dammed the Azusa, drowning a stand of trees and pooling the water into what is now Taishō Pond. In the morning calm the Hotaka peaks hang perfectly upside down on it, with the bleached trunks standing among their own reflections. Yakedake still vents steam over the whole scene. Upstream from Kappa-bashi, an easy hour of boardwalk takes you through the beech and larch, shaded the whole way, the clear Azusa sliding past just below the planks. The crowd thins as you go. It ends at Myōjin Pond, and that is the older half of the place. Kamikōchi is written today with characters meaning upper highlands, but earlier records use ones meaning inside the gods' fence, and this still pool below the peaks is what that name pointed to. Hotaka Shrine stands on its bank, and each autumn it still holds a boat festival for the god of the mountains.