Sugisawa no Sawasugi

Locally knownKnown to people who live here. Not in the international guidebooks.

Recherche et rédaction Hinato

SawasugiNyuzennatural monumentspring watercedar grove

Photo: Ruess1 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) · original

This is a cedar forest growing on flat ground at sea level, fed by springs rising through the Kurobe alluvial fan — which is not where cedars belong, and it behaves accordingly. Snow loads press the lower branches to the ground, the branches root where they touch, and new trunks grow up from the buried limb, so that a single original tree becomes a cluster of stems around a common stock. The process has a name, fukujo koshin, layering renewal, and this is the only lowland forest in Japan where it happens.

Around 45 hectares of it survived into the 1960s. Farmland development took nearly all of it and 2.67 hectares remain, designated a national natural monument in 1973. A boardwalk runs through it past clear springs — the Kurobe fan spring group is on the national list of a hundred famous waters — and a small free interpretation centre at the entrance explains what you are looking at. The whole thing costs nothing and takes forty minutes.

Informations essentielles

Horaires d'ouverture

Grove and boardwalks open during daylight hours | Nature museum keeps daytime hours

Fermé: Open year-round | Boardwalks may be closed under heavy snow

Tarif d'entrée

Free

Meilleure saison

May–October | August for the cool air under the canopy

Durée de visite

40–60 minutes

Comment s'y rendre

Informations d'accès

Yoshiwara, Nyuzen, Shimoniikawa District. Car recommended — from Nyuzen Smart IC or from Nyuzen Station. Free to enter, including the Sawasugi Nature Museum at the entrance. Wooden boardwalks run through the grove.

Guide d'initié

**Read the interpretation centre first.** Without knowing about layering renewal the grove looks like an ordinary bit of woodland. Five minutes with the models and panels turns it into something you can actually see happening in front of you. **Look at the base of the clusters.** What appears to be several trees is often one, with the connecting limb visible running along or just under the ground. Once you spot the first, they are everywhere. **The springs are part of it.** Clear cold water rises straight out of the flat ground here and is what allows a cedar forest to exist at sea level. It is on the national hundred famous waters list as part of the Kurobe fan group. **Summer is cool inside.** Spring-fed and shaded, the grove runs noticeably colder than the surrounding fields in August. **It is small and free, so treat it as a stop.** Forty minutes, no admission, on the road between Kurobe and the Niigata border. Pair it with the Hisui Coast half an hour further east.

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