Utsukushigahara Highland

What?
Utsukushigahara Highland (美ヶ原高原) is a flat area 2000 meters above sea level. It has a few easy to reach mountain peaks like Mount Ougatou and Mount Ushibuse. More famous though are the grazing cows, the Utsukushi Bell Tower and the Utsukushigahara Open-Air Musuem.
Where?
Utsukushigahara Highland is located in the mountain range east of Matsumoto (松本) in Nagano Prefecture (長野県). There is a bus departing from Matsumoto from June to September, but most of the time it only runs twice in weekends and on holidays. While definitely not impossible to plan your travel around the bus schedule, coming by car is far easier.
URL
Visit Matsumoto

15 years. That’s how long it took to me to try and take revenge for a first attempt at Utsukushigahara Highland completely shrouded in clouds. Back then I was an exchange student participating in a class called “trekking” (seriously, it was a class that solely consisted out of walking) and I wasn’t that into trekking and hiking yet. But the other few “lessons” at Kamikochi, Norikura and Naraijuku did spark the flame, and so in the end I decided that someday I would come back to Utsukushigahara Highland to actually see something of the surroundings.

Of course, the weather in the mountains is something fickle. While driving up towards the open air museum, which also marks one of the starting points of a leisurely 1.5 hour walk on the plateau, the where stretches of open, clear and blue skies with pretty impressive views on the surrounding mountains and the gorges below. Once arrived at the top though, it was like a flashback to 15 years ago. Clouds, mist, greyness.
Nevertheless, there is no use in complaining about the weather at a height of 2000 meters, so we went along with our plan and first entered the open-air museum. This museum flanks partly the path that I took 15 years ago and that we would be walking again today. As a student, the clouds were so thick though that I was only to make up silhouettes of the sculptures in the museum, but I was intrigued anyway.

Now that I stepped into the area of the museum, the feeling of intrigue made place for the feeling of puzzlement. Now don’t get me wrong, there where some interesting pieces here, but there were also absolute duds present. Also, the area was huge, but the way the art installations were spaced was completely random; an overcrowded east area and a west side pretty much left to the powers of nature. In the end, what puzzled me the most was the absolute randomness of the whole place. Is there a theme? Is there a thought behind it? Is there a concept? Questions to which my personal answer isn’t more than a blank space.
In general though, I had a good time. Some of the art pieces were interesting or funny, the weather changed from cloudy to clear to cloudy again, showing both a mystical as sunny-side-up sides of the museum.

Thumbs up.

A rare instance of blue skies.

Clouds and art pieces make for an eerie atmosphere.

Creepy.

We left the museum, had a quick bite at the next-door restaurant and we were on our way for the panoramic walk as it’s called on the official Utsukushigahara Highland website.
Well, we sure had a little bit of better weather than 15 years ago, but I wouldn’t call it panoramic as most of the time clouds hindered the view. Sometimes we had a clear view over the grazing fields dotted with cows, and on the Utstuki Bell Tower. Everything beyond that was pretty much out of reach.
As with many highlands or mountains, it is said that on a clear day you can “even see Mount Fuji”. The fact though is that even the nearby Ougatou hotel/relay station was never really visible, let alone the surrounding mountain ranges and marshlands.
Well, ok, that’s life in the mountains. The peaceful grass fields with lazy grazing cows and the one gluttonous pony were definitely not bad.
“Definitely not bad” might be a fitting description for all that Utsukushigahara Highland has to offer. I wouldn’t choose it over nearby Kamikochi or Norikura Highlands though.