Qualla: Usui Pass

Usui Pass: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Snap55, CC BY 3.0. One hundred and eighty hairpin bends. That is what awaits anyone who takes the old road over Usui Pass, the mountain crossing between Nagano and Gunma prefectures that has funneled travelers, armies, trains, and -- in more recent decades -- drift racers between the highlands and the Kanto plain. Described in the Nihon Shoki as early as the 8th century, when the legendary prince Yamato Takeru is said to have crossed it on his eastern campaigns, Usui Pass has been a chokepoint in Japanese history for over a thousand years. Empires have moved through this gap. So have shoguns, locomotives, and bullet trains. The pass endures because geography left no better option: this is where the mountains finally relent, just enough, to let traffic through.

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Image: Snap55 | CC BY 3.0

Usui Pass: The Shogun's Highway

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T.Kambayashi, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before modern engineering arrived, Usui Pass was already a critical link in Japan's road network. The ancient Tosando highway threaded through the gap, connecting the imperial court to the eastern provinces. During the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate formalized the route ...

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Image: T.Kambayashi | CC BY-SA 3.0

Usui Pass: Iron Horses on a Steep Grade

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Japan National Railways, Public domain. The most remarkable chapter in Usui Pass's history belongs to the railway engineers who refused to let a 6.7 percent gradient stop them. In 1893, the Shin'etsu Main Line opened an 11.2-kilometer segment between Yokokawa Station on the Gunma side and Karuizawa Station on the Nagan...

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Image: Japan National Railways | Public domain

Usui Pass: Drifting into Legend

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Utagawa Kunisada, Public domain. The same hairpin turns that make Usui Pass treacherous for ordinary drivers made it irresistible to Keiichi Tsuchiya, the legendary drift racer known as the Drift King. Tsuchiya honed his skills on these mountain roads, learning to throw a car sideways through blind corners with ...

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Image: Utagawa Kunisada | Public domain

Usui Pass: The Gap That Shaped a Nation

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nekosuki600, CC BY-SA 3.0. Stand at the summit of Usui Pass and you stand on a boundary. To the east, the land drops away toward the Kanto plain, the vast flatland that holds Tokyo and thirty million people. To the west, the highlands of Nagano rise toward the Japanese Alps. For over a millennium, this has...

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Image: Nekosuki600 | CC BY-SA 3.0