Gunma’s volcanic mountains, deep cedar forests, abandoned industrial corridors, and centuries of isolated mountain communities have generated some of the richest ghost lore in the Kanto region. This guide covers locations that are publicly accessible and worth visiting for their genuine historical significance and atmospheric beauty — as well as their legends. Every location on this list can be visited freely and legally during daylight hours.

Visitor Guidelines & Etiquette

Before exploring any of these locations, please read and follow these guidelines:

  • Visit during daylight hours only. Remote mountain sites are genuinely dangerous after dark — poor mobile signal, unstable terrain, and difficult road conditions make night visits inadvisable regardless of interest in the supernatural.
  • Respect private property. If a gate, fence, or sign indicates a boundary, honour it. None of the sites listed here require trespassing.
  • These are places of genuine historical significance. Several locations on this list are associated with industrial accidents, difficult mountain crossings, or tragic community displacement. Approach with respect rather than thrill-seeking.
  • Leave no trace. Do not remove anything from any site, including rocks, plant material, or any objects you find.
  • Go with a companion in remote areas. Not for supernatural reasons — but because mobile signal is unreliable in Gunma’s mountain areas and having another person with you is basic safety practice.
  • Be aware of your physical surroundings. Old structures can be unstable. Sulfur gas near geothermal vents can be harmful in concentration. Observe from safe distances.

Usui Pass & Meganebashi — Abandoned Railway Ruins

The old Usui Pass (碓氷峠) was for centuries the most treacherous mountain crossing in central Honshu — the steep divide between the Kanto plain and Nagano’s interior. Countless travellers, porters, and merchants died attempting winter crossings before the modern road was built.

In 1893, Japan’s Meiji-era engineers solved the problem with the Abt rack-railway — an extraordinary feat of engineering that used a toothed centre rail to haul trains up a 66.7‰ gradient through 26 tunnels and across 18 bridges. The line closed in 1963 when the Shinkansen made it obsolete, leaving behind kilometres of tunnels, brick bridges, and overgrown stone foundations deep in forest.

The centerpiece is Meganebashi (眼鏡橋, “Spectacles Bridge”) — a four-arch brick aqueduct built in 1892 that stands 31 metres high in the forest gorge. It is one of the most impressive pieces of Meiji-era civil engineering in Japan and is freely accessible on foot. Workers died during construction of the railway, and the long sealed tunnels (several are open for walking during daylight) have accumulated decades of ghost stories from local hikers.

The atmosphere in the gorge — cold even in summer, mist rising off the forest floor, the sound of water amplified against the brick — is genuinely otherworldly without any supernatural assistance.

Access: 20-minute walk from Yokokawa Station (JR Shinetsu Line, terminus). The Meganebashi is well-signed from the station and free to visit. The tunnel walk (Abt Railway Trail) operates during daylight hours.

Sainokawara — Kusatsu’s Sulfur Wasteland

At the far edge of Kusatsu Onsen town, beyond the last ryokan, the landscape changes abruptly. Vegetation disappears. The ground turns pale grey and brown. Steam rises from cracks in the earth. The air carries the sharp smell of sulfur. This is Sainokawara (賽の河原) — a name drawn directly from Buddhist cosmology.

In Japanese Buddhist tradition, Sai-no-kawara is the riverbank between this world and the underworld — the place where the souls of children who died before their parents are said to gather, eternally stacking stones that demons knock down at night, until the bodhisattva Jizo protects them and guides them onward. Kusatsu’s founders named this geothermal wasteland after that place deliberately.

The open-air bath here — Sainokawara Park Rotemburo — is a 500-square-metre public bath built in the middle of the sulfur field. Bathing in it (¥600, swimwear required) while steam rises from the ground around you and the smell of sulfur fills the air is an experience unlike any conventional onsen.

Beyond the bath, the public park continues through the dead-ground zone where nothing grows — cracked pale earth, steaming vents, and the distant sound of Kusatsu’s more conventional streets fading behind you. It is free to walk through and genuinely eerie at dusk.

Access: 15-minute walk from the Yubatake. Open freely. Bath ¥600, swimwear required.

Agatsuma Gorge & the Drowned Village

The deep gorge carved by the Agatsuma River above the valley town has been associated with supernatural legends for as long as local records exist. But the modern layer of the story is more recent: Yagisawa Dam, completed in 1965, flooded a section of valley that contained several small farming communities.

In dry years or during dam maintenance drawdowns, traces of the submerged infrastructure appear at the lake’s edges — stone walls, road foundations, the occasional remnant of a building foundation. Local residents recall the displacement; their children and grandchildren walk the gorge trail above and know the stories.

The cliff-top walking path along the gorge is publicly accessible and follows the dramatic canyon walls above the reservoir. In autumn, the red and orange foliage against the grey cliff face is spectacular — and the combination of flooded valley history with deep-gorge atmosphere makes this one of Gunma’s more genuinely evocative landscapes.

Access: By car from Naganohara town on Route 145, ~1.5 hours from Takasaki. The gorge walking trail is signed and free.

Old Silk Road Mountain Passes — Centuries of Mountain Inn Legends

Before the railways, Gunma’s mountain passes were the arteries of the silk trade between coastal Japan and the landlocked interior. Porters, merchants, and seasonal workers crossed these passes in all weathers, and the mountain inns that served them accumulated centuries of stories.

The Shimonita and Kanra area in western Gunma preserves several old farmhouses and former inn buildings along the traditional mountain routes. These are not abandoned — many are still inhabited or maintained as heritage properties — but the Kanra gassho-zukuri farmhouses (thatched-roof A-frame houses, publicly viewable from the road) sit in a landscape that has changed very little since the Edo period.

Local oral tradition attributes unusual activity to several of the old pass-side inns — particularly during winter, when the passes were snowed in and travellers were sometimes stranded for weeks. These stories are told as local history rather than horror, and hearing them from residents at a local izakaya is more interesting than any purpose-built haunted attraction.

Access: Shimonita is ~1.5 hours from Takasaki by car. The Kanra farmhouse district is viewable from the road.

Watarase Valley — Meiji Industrial Memory

The Watarase Keikoku (valley) follows the Watarase River through the mountains on Gunma’s border with Tochigi. The narrow-gauge Watarase Keikoku Railway runs the length of the valley, and the autumn foliage season draws significant visitor numbers.

What fewer visitors know is that the upper reaches of the valley were the output zone for the Ashio Copper Mine — one of Japan’s first major industrial pollution disasters. From the 1880s through the early 1900s, copper smelting waste washed down the Watarase River and poisoned farmland across a vast area of the lower Kanto plain, destroying communities and livelihoods.

The valley itself — steep, forested, threaded by a mountain railway — has the quiet intensity of a place carrying difficult memory. The train journey through it in autumn, with the forest turning and the narrow river visible below, is beautiful and slightly melancholy in a way that has nothing to do with the supernatural and everything to do with history.

Access: Watarase Keikoku Railway from Kiryu (JR Ryomo Line from Takasaki ~50min). Full valley run takes about 2 hours. Day tickets available.

Practical Tips

  • All sites on this list are free to access (Sainokawara bath excepted at ¥600).
  • Meganebashi is the most accessible for a half-day trip from Tokyo — combine with the Yokokawa SA (Japan’s most famous motorway service area, famous for Kamameshi rice pots) for a complete day out.
  • Sainokawara fits naturally into any Kusatsu Onsen visit — it is a 15-minute walk from the Yubatake and requires no special planning.
  • Mobile signal is poor in the Agatsuma Gorge and Watarase Valley areas — download offline maps before visiting.
  • Mountain roads in Gunma can be closed by snowfall October–April. Check road conditions before driving to the gorge or pass areas.
  • The Watarase Valley railway runs limited services — check the timetable in advance and build in time for the last train.