Kamikochi and Norikura in May

Hello,

I plan to travel to the Hida mountain range in the second half of May next year. I will stay in Hirayu-onsen as a base and plan to do a daytrip to Kamikochi for hiking.

Besides, I also want to climb up to Mount Norikuradake. In contrast to Kamikochi, I didn't find a lot of information on the weather at the summit in late May. Can anyone give me some advice? Will the hiking trails still be completely covered with snow? Will I need spikes for my shoes?

Or would you rather recommend a daytrip to Norikura or even Takayama? I will have a car so I am a bit more flexible (I know that Kamikochi and Mount Norikuradaka are accessible by bus only though).

Thanks for your input!

Hi

I am not local to Norikura but I read Japanese so....

According to the Japanese wikipedia page for Norikura it will average 1 decree C in May and 6 C in June with lows of -2 and 1 and highs of 4 and 9 respectively.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%97%E9%9E%8D%E5%B2%B3#%E6%B0%97%E5...

Searching for Norikura on flickr and stipulating a late May date shows that there was quite a lot of snow in May 2018
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=Norikura&path=nihonbunka&nsid=&pag...
And snow too in 2017
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=Norikura&path=nihonbunka&nsid=&pag...
though it looks to me (a non mountain climber!!) that you do it in boots without spikes.

That said every year people die in the mountains when the weather suddenly turns for the worse.

We were in Kamikochi in May a few years back. There was still snow on the mountains and a few people were taking skii's up and skiing down, not that I saw that happen, I just saw them wandering about with their skiis. In the valley itself there was dirty snow in piles here and there, even then.

We were there again in the beginning of November when the snow was just starting to fall. The real time footage of the trails looked pretty intense.

I found this post by someone who hiked Mt. Norikuradake at nearly the end of June
https://www.garyjwolff.com/mt-norikura-dake.html

In his pictures, the ground is mostly clear, but there is still enough snow to ski down and this is about 1 month after you want to go.

And if you're curious there was this NHK program about an alpinist climbing it in presumably February or March because the Kuraigahara Sanso is open and it doesn't open until February.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/journeys/journey_20170411.html

Though it looks like there is a snow corridor walk in Norikura Kogen:
https://japan-magazine.jnto.go.jp/en/1504_spring.html

And there is this post about Norikura in June
https://visitmatsumoto.com/en/nature/snow-walls-on-mt-norikuradake/

And more on the snow walls
http://jp-gate.com/u/sightseeing/azftyybuem6bh7

So hopefully this all gives you some idea. Good luck!

Thanks for the responses! I will have a look into the links you posted.