Although Kanagwa Prefecture is a part of Metropolitan Tokyo, we have one of the most secluded places in Kanto Region. It has a legendary beauty. The place is called Yushin Valley ユーシン渓谷. The valley is the narrow middle to downstream of Kurokura River 玄倉川 that starts from the east point of Lake Tanzawa 丹沢湖, at Kurokura 玄倉 community. Kurokura River runs to the east for about 12km. The scenery of Yushin Valley from the forestry road was/is gorgeous. In addition to seasonally changing vista of mountains, the water of Kurokura River is so pure. As it runs on the bedrock of white granite typical for deep Tanzawa mountains, Yushin Valley looks like a stream of sapphire blue in fine days. It is named Yushin Blue. People who saw the place told me, “You don’t have to go to Capri for Blue Grotto!” Wooooow. Unfortunately, the area is not possible to enter now.
At least on map, there goes a forestry road, named Kurokura Forestry Road 玄倉林道, along the Kurokura River up to the point where the valley diverts to Hohkisugi Stream 箒杉沢 and Nabewari Stream 鍋割沢. The access to Kurokura River by public transportation is from Odakyu Shinmatsuda Station 小田急新松田駅. We have to catch a bus to Kurokura operated by Fujikyu-Shonan Bus 富士急湘南バス. It’s about an hour bus-ride. From the bus stop we walk a forestry road, called Nakanosawa Forestry Road 中ノ沢林道, to the north for about 1 km to meet with Kurokura Power Plant #1 玄倉第一発電所. The beginning of Kurokura Forestry Road is about 2km north from the Power Plant #1, diverting to the east from Nakanosawa Forestry Road. Moving along Kurokura Forestry road itself was an adventure. It has 9 tunnels all of which do not have any lamp. Several of them have even cranks inside. The forestry road climbs up only slowly for about 300m with 12km. It may be long, but walking surrounded by gorgeous nature, Yushin Blue inclusive, was not so demanding for casual visitors. Say, if you’re a guy who wants to show how macho you are to your city-girlfriend in a stunningly beautiful scenery, the setting was perfect, with a series of pitch black tunnels … There was Yushin Lodge ユーシン・ロッジ at about 8km point from the beginning of Kurokura Road (; er, “there is,” actually, as the building is standing still). The Lodge was managed by the Prefecture. The Office used to allow people who reserved nights’ stay at the hut to drive to Yushin Lodge. The premise was popular among mountaineers as a base camp to the main peaks of Tanzawa, such as Mt. Hirugatake 蛭ヶ岳 (ASL 1672.6m), Mt. Hinokiboramaru 檜洞丸 (ASL 1601m) or Mt. Tanzawasan 丹沢山 (ASL 1567m).
There is a reason why the Prefecture constructed a forestry road in such a deep mountain. Before the diversion point of Hohkisugi and Nabewari Streams, there is a hydroelectric dam, named Kumaki Dam 熊木ダム. Kumaki Dam drops the water via underground aqueduct to another dam, Kurokura Dam 玄倉ダム / Kurokura Power Plant #2, which is in the middle of Kurokura River. At the Kurokura Dam, the water from the catchment area of Kurokura River is gathered. A part is used for electric generation at Kurokura Power Plant #2, and the rest is sent into another underground canal for electric generation at Kurokura Power Plant #1. The electricity produced in these two plants is sold to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and fed into the electric grid of Metropolitan Tokyo. So if you’re in Kanagwa, or Tokyo, you may use the power generated there now. It’s the thing of dam in Japan, and so, we can collect dam cards by visiting these places. (About dam cards, my post on April 19, 2019.) In addition, the place has legendary beauty! If you collect the dam cards, please take your selfie with the Kurokura Power Plant #1, and bring it to the Admin Office of Lake Tanzawa at Miho Dam 三保ダム (my post on April 19, 2019). Officers there will give you 4 cards at once: one for Power Plant #1, then for #2, Kurokura Dam, and Kumaki Dam. i.e. You don’t have to visit the power plant #2 and the dams. Why is this short cut? Because Kurokura Forestry Road is closed at the moment. There is no reason for human side to close Kurokukra Forestry Road, right? Mother nature thinks differently, perhaps.
Basically, the area of Kurokura River is a tricky place. Do you remember I told you a famous 1999 drowning accident of 13 people near Kurokura Dam? (My post on August 24, 2018.) It’s a really remote place. In 2006, the Prefecture checked the safety of the Forestry Road, and found large cracks in the third tunnel, named Aozare Tunnel 青崩隧道. The bonus treatment for the customers to Yushin Lodge was terminated, and the Lodge was closed in April 2007. New tunnel was excavated and opened in 2011 as New Aozare Tunnel, but the car usage of Kurokura Forestry Road was strictly limited for the holders of governmental permission … I think it made the legend of sleeping beauty Yushin Valley definitive … Then, on 17 January 2018, a troop of hunters who engaged in prefectural tasks of culling wild deer found another large fractures in the slopes along the route between tunnel #3 and #6. (I know this date, as one of the hunters is my Forest Instructor pal.) It snowed heavily next week. When people returned there after snow, huge landslides happened here and there, and the forestry road was completely blocked. The collapsed soil poured into the river so that, according to a person who went there, the Yushin Valley was not blue, but of whitish mud. As of January 2020, Kanagawa Prefecture sets up locked wire fences at the mouths of tunnels between New Aozare Tunnel and Tunnel #6. The beauty of Yushin Blue is off-limit for us …
Although currently we cannot approach to the middle to downstream of Kurokura River, we are able to enter, a sort of, the upstream of Kurokura River. How? Here comes Ameyama Pass 雨山峠 I reported the devastation last week. At least till the autumn of 2017, from Ameyama Pass to Kurokura Forestry Road, there was a relatively well-organized hiking road which ran from Ameyama Pass along Ameyama Stream 雨山沢 pouring in Kurokura River. We’ve been there last month to find almost all the hiking road is washed away up until the last few hundred meters of a metal plank path secured by bolts and nuts to the bedrock of Tanzawa. Below are the photos I’ve taken there.
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| Basically, the route
from Ameyama Pass to Kurokura Forestry Road is on the riverbed of Ameyama Stream. We guessed the right-hand side of this photo was the trace where once a hiking road ran. |
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| So, there are lots of “ruins” like this, dangling from the steep slope. |
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| Still some installments are still working. Thank God. |
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| The scenery tells why there is no route anymore here … |
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| Smaller dry valleys tell us eloquently what happened. |
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| Hmmmmmmmmm. Debris flow will happen again, and again, don’t you think? |
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| This precarious red ribbon shows we’re on the right track. |
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| This section of the route has a
better condition. I was amazed water runs over the huge white granite. The bedrock remains, really. |
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| Almost suddenly, a metal plank path appears. Strange … |
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| Kurokura River is over there. |
The route from Ameyama Pass joins with Kurokura Forestry Road at Ameyama Bridge 雨山橋. We proceeded further on Kurokura Forestry Road to Yushin Lodge … I think there have not been many people entered there. The Forestry Road has lots of collapses so that we did a bit of rock climbing in order to progress. Although the remnants of the road are paved, they were buried by thick piles of fallen leaves. Many dry valleys along the road were filled with large debris flow covering the forestry road. We glimpsed the entrance to Yushin Lodge across Kurokura River, and returned to Ameyama Pass due to time constraint. (Remember? Walking the route via Ameyama Pass after dark is suicidal.) The upstream of Kurokura River has a wide riverbed owing to frequent and massive debris flows. It gives us a feeling of “wide open space,” which is actually not at all safe. Large bridges and weirs were standing. I found them a sort of fruitless human struggle … It was the end of autumn. We met many large mosses that can be seen only in deep mountains. The whole landscape was so serene and beautiful …
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| At the crossing of the route from Ameyama Path and Kurokura Forestry Road |
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| Ameyama Bridge is over there. |
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| We recognized lots of
footsteps of deer and large mammals on the road. It was paved route, but the sandy debris covers the road. |
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| To Yushin Lodge |
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| The collapsed Kurokura Forestry Road |
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| Another collapsed part. Huh, it takes an effort to make this route passable again for cars. |
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| The debris flow is covering … |
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| Hmmmmmmm |
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| The bridge to the
entrance to Yushin Lodge. The weir over there is standing. |
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| Don’t you think it’s
beautiful? The forest over there is designated as one of the best 50 forests in Kanagawa Prefecture. |
Kanagawa Prefecture is having a hard time for managing Kurokura and Kumaki Dams both of which are now beyond the locked-off area from Kurokura community. The only way for the officers to go there is on foot via Ameyama Pass. The Office has asked Kanagawa Forest Instructors to give them any information about the access to the area. The senior Instructors are presuming the Prefecture could not leave Kurokura Forestry Road as such because of hydroelectric power generation. At the moment, the prefectural government plans to start repair works this spring, and to open the entire Kurokura Forestry Road by the end of March 2023. Until then Yushin Valley remains as an inaccessible secluded place in our neighborhood. I’m just waiting for the time we can go there more easily. But, if such days come, those lovely large mosses would be gone by lots of tourists. Sad. Which is better in the end?
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| Climacium dendroides |
If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター
657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121 厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323
You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/
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