Preparing Japan’s alpine route for reopening

The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route connects Omachi City in Nagano Prefecture and Tateyama Town in Toyama Prefecture with a ropeway, cable cars and buses.

The 90-kilometer route attracts about one million visitors every year.

At one ropeway station on Tuesday, workers climbed onto the roofs of the carriages and carefully checked for loose cables.

Murodo is the route’s highest point, at 2,450 meters. Eight bulldozers cleared snow from the road that had accumulated to a depth of 8 meters.

A senior official of the route’s operator says the snowfall was heavier than usual this year, so visitors will be able to see higher-than-usual snow walls along the roadside.

Some sections of the route will open on Monday ahead of the full reopening on April 15th.

Source: NHK
Image: YouTube