Nikoi Kougen Resort Ruins ニコイ高原の廃墟

In the mountains of Miyagawa, one of the Hida City's valley villages, there are the ruins of a failed development project known as the Nikoi Kougen Resort or Nikoi Plateau Resort. The existing building, and only actual constructed building, was to be one part of a resort area including a gold course, ski resort, archery courses, rental villas, a hotel, boating pond, an amusement park, limestone cave viewing, and more. So many hopes and dreams that had ultimately failed before the first phase had even been completed.

Let's begin with the end of World War II. During the war, many ordinary Japanese citizens moved away from large cities as Americans targetted them for bombing. The Hida region was a convenient area away from Nagoya and Gifu cities in the south and Toyama in the north. As the war ended, Japan surrended, and with the newly established government from the US, people began moving back to the cities to rebuild and find work.

This was the beginning of the rural depopulation for Hida, and the depopulation became exponential in the 60s when Japanese industry started to become a worldwide innovator, especially with TVs and cars.

The area known as Nikoi Kougen used to be a small village called Nikoi-Daira with a couple of homes and a school. The school was a branch school of Tanekura Elementary School. Tanekura is the village/neighborhood west of the area along the river in the valley. Many of these really remote areas used to be mining or logging settlements. A village would build up around the logging location, the workers would have children, and then it would be too difficult for their kids to travel during winter to get to the main school. A branch school was then set up so teachers of the nearby school could travel up the mountain, stay there for a few days, and teach the kids. I talk about this a lot in the Kiyomi School History post.

The branch school was opened in 1952 to accomodate students. It then closed in 1962 probably because the settlement had folded. It could have folded from the logging company ceasing operations there, or because people wanted to live closer to their families, or because of increased technology, more powerful cars and trucks could go up there on their own in winter.

In 1972, a construction company from Nagoya had purchased the land as part of an initiative in Japan to stop the depopulation of rural areas. The plan was to build those amusement areas mentioned above. Construction began in 1974. The first phase was to be concluded by the end of 1975, but the company went bankrupt in summer, partly due to the cost of building this resort area.

The only building that was completed was this triangular building, the resort's restaurant. It's grand opening was planned in Nov 1972, but that didn't happen. Apparently, there's records of a pre-opening event being held there, which meant that the building had been fully completed. Next to the triangular restaurant is a concrete foundation of another building that did not advance further.

Credit to most of this information goes to haikyo.info. I came across this site a few weeks ago trying to find information about another haikyo site that I visited several years ago.

After a busy couple of weeks, I finally found some time to go up there. Monday of Golden Week had the best weather, so I left my house around 7:30am. I tried visiting the prior weekend, but the roads had been blocked. I went to the Miyagawa Archaeological Museum instead, and the museum guide said that it would be fine to walk there. So, whether the roads were open or not, I had planned to walk.

Sure enough, the road was still closed. But, it was a only 3.5ish-kilometer hike on a paved surface. Easy.

Only 500 meters into the hike showed that it would actually be impossible to use this road to drive there. A landslide had completely covered the road, taking a tree with it. Throughout the trek, several other trees had fallen on the road, blocking the path. Not difficult to walk through, but not possible with a car.

A couple of forest friends also showed up on the hike. I saw a few lizards, and I also met two mountain goats.

This is the Japanese Serow, a treasure of the forest. They are completely harmless and are considered a symbol of life in the forest. By the mid-50s, there were apparently hunted to near extinction, and a law was passed making them illegal to hunt. Since then, their numbers have skyrocketed to the point where they are no longer threatened. Sometimes they cause some problems for farmers, though, so the law was appealed in 1979 allowed farmers to cull their numbers in certain situations.

It only took about 50 minutes to cover the 3km stretch of mountain road to reach the front gate of the resort. Going past the gate and derelict pond and fountain, the road was now more open. And appearing through the woods, was the resturant of the Nikoi-Kougen Resort.

The building still stands after all this time thanks to its steel beams, concrete foundation, and aluminum (I assume) roofing. Many buildings from around this time has a similar metal roofing, and depending on the amount of snow in winter, the weight could bend and warp the roof, like what has happened with this restaurant.

The restaurant is in an odd orientation. The entrance faces towards north in the direction of the road, but the road never meets it. The road and restaurant are separated by a stream cutting through the area. The road goes past the restaurant and a small bridge connects the road to the back of the restaurant.

I'm not sure how patrons were supposed to access the entrance of the restaurant. Maybe there were supposed to be more bridges and walking paths along the opposite side of the river.

The triangle side of the building was meant to be fully glassed, giving everyone an open view of the nature outside. Now, all that glass is gone, and this half of the building is completely exposed. This area was one of many dining areas.

The above photo is the dining area pushed back from the entrance. Maybe it could be sectioned off as a closed room for a party of guests? The door in the wall leads to the kitchen. This section also opens up in the main open area where small tables were probably set. You could look up at the second floor dining area from here.

After this, I went through the collapsing archway into a tiled room in the center of the building. This must've been the kitchen. Various pipes came up from the concrete floor. Maybe these were draining pipes for sinks? There were more pipes on the walls. Looking at the wooden hoods above those areas, those were probably gas pipes for cooking ranges and stoves.

Several tiles has broken away from the wall, but many of them were still stronger affixed to the wall. Pretty good for a 50-year-old building no one maintained.

The door in the back leads to a hallway with a series of rooms. The hallway has a door at the end that goes outside, so this is probably how they would bring in deliveries to stock their refrigerators. There's a square room which also has a door in the back of the building. This was probably the staff room, or maybe an office. There's a staff bathroom back here, too.

There's also the boiler room for water pressure, electricty, and heat. An electric panel was present that showed all the amps powering the freezer storage room.

The two other doorways of the kitchen led to another dining area. In the back of the room was a wooden frame on the floor. I was thinking that it could've been a bar, but it was probably a tatami floor. On the ground, there was several decades-old beer bottles and cans from other people exploring the ruins in years past.

The plastic tiling on the ground had split at its seams and began curling up. Other old work equipment and gear laid on the floor, decaying with the rest of the building.

It's not a very big building and the only place left to explore was the second floor dining area.

When exploring ruins, you have to be careful of a lot of different things. Depending on how decayed the building is, parts of the building could collapse when you walk on it. Exposed nails, wires, and glass could cut, puncture, and result in infection. There's also the danger of inhaling asbestos, mold, or any other toxic material used in the construction of older buildings that could now be exposed from the buildings decay.

Going up to the second floor increases the likelihood of something bad happening. I could fall through the floor. Or accidentally grab something harmful to keep my balance from falling.

The upper floor was pretty small, though. And with the triangle roof gone and being completely exposed to nature, plants had begun to grow from the floor. I didn't see any roots of these plants from below, so the floor must've been pretty thick. Even so, I still stayed towards the edge of the room, next to the walls where support was the strongest.

The inner wall of the room had completely decayed, so you could you see the suspended roof of the kitchen, the back rooms, and other dining rooms. There was an electrical outlet on the wall, but it's wires had been cut. There was also a dumbwaiter that connected to the one below next to the kitchen. That makes sense as the staircase was too narrow for anyone to carry food.

The first floor main dining area was very simliar to the second floor. With the roof gone, dirt had been blown in or carried by snow. And from that, plants had begun to grow.

The roof covering the rest of the building had been severely warped. Almost all of the wooden supports that had suspended the metal roof had become brittle, rotted away, and broken. Having to carry the weight of 50 years worth of blizzards resulting in meters and meters of snow and ice, the roof had been molded into its current melted-looking shape. Actually, many abandoned homes in the nearby village had similar looking roofs.

Even in May, there was still large piles of heavy snow turned to ice. They probably should've given the building more clearance from the hill. The windows on that side of the building were probably the first to shatter from the pressure of snow and ice. I suppose a building company from Nagoya wouldn't know that, though.

I walked through the building again, and then ventured out back.

Here's the office from the outside.

Around the back was a water reservoir, so the building could have clean water. There are no pipes or sewers up here in the mountains, so the whole building would've had to be self-sufficient.

On a raised platform next to the restaurant, there was the foundation of a larger building that never made it past this initial stage. I don't think its been publically stated what this was supposed to be. It's pretty small for a hotel, so maybe it was living quarters for the staff? Or maybe it was a souvenir store?

After looking around at the foundation, I had seen everything I needed to.

I left the area from the front of the building on the opposite side of the river as the road. This is where guests would have been coming and going. But there was nothing over here. The open area of the land just led to the river. Maybe they planned on making a bridge? The stream/river was a little wider than I had planned on, but a tree had fallen across, so I balanced my way across back to the road.

I left the area the same way I had arrived.

There was one other feature of the Nikoi Resort that had some infrastructure. About 1km down the road, there was a waterfall with a walkway to view it from.

On the road, you could easily hear the waterfall and see its top. But finding the trailhead leading to the walkway was not so easy. It was much further down the road than you'd think. Also, there were no signs or labels. The entrance just seemed like every other curve in the road.

I eventually found it, though. Several beams of the railing had rusted through and collapsed. The walkway also seemed to move a little bit when I stepped on it. But, overall, it felt safe. It did not feel like it was going to collapse.

After going across a few of these walkways, the final one went across a gap that gave the perfect image of the Nikoi Waterfall.

Yep, that's a waterfall.

There was a tunnel at the end of the walkway. Apparently this led to a limestone cave? Or led to something interesting along a cliff? The sign it was only 134 meters long, but I couldn't see any light in the tunnel at all. Even after going about 10 meters into the tunnel, the ceiling was getting shorter and it looked like the tunnel had collapsed. F that, I'm outta here.

I took a few more waterfall photos, but I went back to the road and then back to my car. The whole hike took about 3 hours.

Along part of the road, I was able to see the hydroelectric facilities at the base of the mountain, near where I parked. But, I was not able to see any of the road when I was back at my car. I took a few photos of what looked like a corner mirror sign, but on later inspection, couldn't find it.

Overall, I'm not really sure how the development company planned on making money from the Nikoi project. It's a nice area, but way too remote for anyone remotely rich to want to come up here regularly. The company probably saw the success of other areas in Nagano and thought they could do it here. But, nope. And they went bankrupt before even getting anywhere.

Now it's just another rotting relic of Japan's rich past.