Kamikochi Kappa-Bashi - Hida, Japan

Kappa-bashi (河童橋) is a wooden suspension bridge about 120 feet (36.6 m) long that crosses the clear Azusa River in Kamikochi (上高地), a high valley in the Northern Japanese Alps, and behind it rise the jagged peaks of the Hotaka range.

The valley floor lies at about 4,900 feet (1,500 m) inside Chubu-Sangaku National Park. Private cars have been banned since the 1990s, so visitors come by bus or taxi, and the valley is open from mid-April to mid-November before winter closes the road.

The first wooden bridge here became a suspension bridge in 1910, and today's bridge is the fifth, renovated in 1997. Nobody knows for sure where the name came from, but it likely refers to the kappa, water spirits of Japanese folklore.

Did You Know? Ryunosuke Akutagawa's 1927 novel Kappa mentions the bridge, and the book helped spark a tourism boom in Kamikochi.

See more live mountain cams, explore the Landscapes collection, find more live lake and river cams, browse live webcams in Japan, or explore our Live Webcam Map.