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Jikkoku Pass
Mikuni Pass (listed on Maps as Jikkoku Pass) is the highest point on a national highway anywhere in Hokkaido. At 1,139 metres, the saddle on National Route 273 straddles the border between Kamikawa and Kamishihoro and sits inside Daisetsuzan National Park, on the Mitsumata side of town. Its name recalls the meeting point of three old provinces — Ishikari, Tokachi and Kitami — and the reward for the climb is one of Hokkaido's great wilderness panoramas: a vast, unbroken sea of Yezo spruce and fir falling away into a bowl of forest, with the red S-curve of the Matsumi Ōhashi Bridge threading the valley below. This is a drive-to-the-summit kind of place. A free parking area and observation deck wait at the top, alongside a seasonal café where people stop for hand-drip coffee and soft-serve with the mountains for a backdrop. The road itself is the attraction: hairpin curves, the long tunnel bored through Mikuni Mountain, and a descent toward Tokachi where the highway looks almost like a brushstroke across the green.