Narusawa Ice Cave — Attraction in Narusawa

We visited the ice caves for a short trip and found that the route was quite brief.

There is an entrance fee of 700 yen per cave, and there are two caves to choose from: the Wind Cave and the Ice Cave. Though the trail is pretty short, I think paying this amount is alright seeing that they take the maintenance and the safety structural quite strongly since there were 2 staff there at the cave that were making checks in the cave.

We opted for the Ice Cave, which turned out to be a small, narrow, and squeezy trail.

Wearing a helmet is highly recommended, especially for taller individuals (I think above 160 cm), as the low ceilings and narrow pathways made us constantly bump into the rocks. The entrance is also quite tight, making it unsuitable for people with claustrophobia due to the need to squeeze through narrow tunnels.

That said, the view of the ice glaciers is quite spectacular, especially during the winter season.

Some of the ice formations are man-made blocks with explanatory signs in Japanese. Although we couldn’t understand the signs directly, using Google Translate helped us grasp their meaning, as seen in the images.

The entire route can be completed in about 30 minutes if you skim through it.

The experience is suitable for children but may not be elderly-friendly due to steep steps that require bending your knees to navigate.

Overall, I think this is a nice spot for a short visit. Explore the cave, enjoy the views, check out the souvenir shops, and then move on to your next...

Ice cave is wonderful to get away from the hot weather. I was worried by their maps that made it look like we could run into a room with water or fall down a tunnel, but the handrails kept us on path. It is a short 20 mins but be warned the stairs and passages are steep, wet, and can be slippery. There is one narrow and low ceiling passage of about 20 feet. There is a couple of places with low ceiling to duck down. I would not recommend this if you have mobility problems and a couple of sections gets dark. There are bars to hold onto but one bar seemed a little wobbly. You can use one of their free helmets but there were only 5 total helmets there— there was one other group of 3 people at the cave while we were there and they didn’t have helmets so not sure if the facility only has 5 helmets for all visitors. There is one section that has the ice to see on the left and right. When we went, there didn’t seem to be as much ice as other people’s pictures. It was cool to see the natural ice formation and not something I would go out of your way for, but if you are in the area and interested in geology then drop by. They also had...

Narusawa ice cave is a really cool, quick (10 minute) adventure if you are going to be in the Fuji area. The history and seeing an ice cave in Japan was interesting. Not sure how it compares to the other cave options. It's very cold and I recommend bringing gloves because it was painful to get necessary to hold onto the railing.

It's a bit far out of the way even once in the Fuji area and transportation was tricky for someone who's not familiar with the local bus station and there was no one to ask for help. We took the train from Tokyo to the nearest bus station. At the station, there were 3 bus lines and tickets sold inside and it was very busy. You do not have to purchase a ticket to ride the bus, just scan suica. Take the blue line to the ice cave (the signs weren't clearly marked). We just missed the bus and it was 30min -1 hr for the next one, so we took a taxi to get there.

At the ice caves, it was not busy and there are coin lockers and a cute gift shop. It was convenient to prepurchase...