Lake Chuzenji lies at about 1,270 metres in the mountains above Nikko, and it was born in violence. Some twenty thousand years ago, an eruption of Mount Nantai, the cone that now rises above the northern shore, sent lava across the Daiya river and dammed the valley, and the water that built up behind it became the lake. The result is a deep, cold, clear body of water, shaped like a crescent, with wooded slopes plunging into it and no real beach.
For many years the lake was a summer retreat for foreign diplomats, who escaped the heat of Tokyo by travelling up to Chuzenji in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the British, Italian and other embassies built villas on the shore. A few have been restored and are open to visitors, and the sight of wooden houses in a Western style, with verandas looking over the water, gives the lake a faintly colonial air. Boats and a few small cruise vessels operate in summer, and fishermen cast for trout from the shore.
The way up is the Irohazaka, the famous road of forty-eight hairpin bends, named after the forty-eight characters of the old Japanese syllabary. Today two one-way roads climb and descend the same slope, so you either climb or drop, and the bends come one after another with a drop on the outside and forest on the inside. It is a thrilling ride, though demanding, and best taken at a steady, controlled pace. In mid-October, the maple and birch trees on the slope turn red, orange and gold, drawing crowds, and the road can be slow and busy.
Nikko, twelve kilometres below, has sixteen thousand people and all the usual services, including fuel, and Imaichi, a little farther, has more. At the lake itself, there is a village with restaurants, shops and inns, and fuel is limited, so fill up in the valley. Temperatures here are well below those in the lowlands, with frost in October and snow in winter. When the weather is clear, the view from the shore, with the mountains reflected in still water, is among the most beautiful in Japan, and in morning mist it takes on an almost Chinese ink-painting quality. Bring layers, because the wind off the water is cold.