Hiking in Hokkaido

Sydney Nimble encourages employees to travel and share holiday experiences.

On a recent holiday in Hokkaido (Japan’s large northern island) we stopped at an area known for geothermal activity, Lake Akan.

The lake is part of the Akan-Mashu National Park and whilst there why not do a hike!

The selected peak was Mt Meakan and we took the Meakan Onsen Trail. It was described in the national parks pamphlet as taking the shortest time to hike and being slightly more challenging than the other two trails up Mt Meakan.

The trail was classified as a Grade 3 hike. It took us over 5 hours to do the hike whilst the pamphlet estimated time was 4 hours 10 minutes.

For the most part the trail was hard work. The first 40 minutes are through a forest stepping over and around large tree roots and intermittent pockets of bright green moss.

We came across several different and interesting types of fungus ranging from bright red to yellow. Love a new fungus!

After the forest the trail makes its way up the mountain doing its best to avoid many large rocks.

With a great sense of relief we made it to the top of the mountain and started walking on the rim of the main crater.

By that stage the cloud cover was strong and we could see very little in any direction. It is what it is a fellow hiker quipped.

After walking along the rim for about 150 metres and taking a few very average photos in the process, we decided to head back.

No point stumbling around on a creater rim in a white out.

However as luck would have it the cloud cleared in the crater just as we were about to descend. We could now see Mt Meakan’s main crater.

What a sight! Gas was fuming out of several vents and in the distance across the rim a larger plume of gas was whisking into the sky.

The strong smell of sulphur was present with Mt Meakan being one of Japan’s most active volcanoes.

After observing and enjoying the activity in the crater we headed back.

The descent was more difficult than anticipated with volcanic scree being very slippery in spots. Easy to fall, hard to get up!

At last we made it to the bottom. If you ever get around to doing this hike allow five hours for the venture and expect a grade 4 hike by Australian standards.

If you get clear weather the effort is well worth it!