Ochiai pass

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A picture of Ochiai pass taken December last year.  Even though it says Ochiai pass, it took nearly half an hour of driving from Ochiai hamlet.  And the road was terrible, narrow and full of potholes, not the kind I would want to drive again, though I probably will go there again anyways.  The "pass" itself was very beautiful, and combined with a fine weather it was one of the best moments of my time in Iya so far.

I visited the pass partially because on the mountaineering guide book said the pass is a field of thatch grass, and I was looking for thatch fields.  Unfortunately, the pass was actually covered with dwarf bamboos, and thatch was growing on the gaps of bamboos.

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In this picture you can see the bamboos better.  I later learned that there has been repeated studies on the plant species composition of this pass since 1960s, and it clearly records the shift from thatch to bamboos.  In the past, people burned the field every few years to keep the pass open, and to collect edible plants and medicines.  Now a days, the constant wind blowing over the mountains and the covering of the ground by bamboos keep the trees from taking over the pass, keeping the pass as a bamboo grassland.  But these bamboos flowers and then dies, all together, every once every half a century or so, and at that point it is likely the field with be succeeded by forest community.  Even now few trees are seen in the fields.

Back in the 1960s somebody has claimed this pass one of the best grassland in the prefecture and potentially a great tourism resource.  Even now, the bamboo field is quite beautiful and can probably attract lots of tourists.  But what will it be like in the future?