Editor’s Note: The story below is the account of writer Edward J. Taylor’s experience exploring Japan’s newest National Park in the fabled northern province of Hokkaido. If you’re interested in experiencing Hokkaido firsthand, there’s no better time to go! And this tour makes it easy — with a curated itinerary that lets you dive deep into Hokkaido’s natural and cultural treasures.
The Japanese have traditionally seen themselves as living in a small island nation, a misconception that has been exported abroad. Yet Japan finds itself in the top third of all countries in terms of total area, though its population is squeezed into a mere 30% of that landmass.
The remaining 70% of the archipelago is mountainous. And over the last decade, overseas travelers have found themselves charmed by the treasures they provide, in the form of hiking, skiing, biking or pilgrimage trails, not to mention the accompanying hot springs and an abundant variety of food.
Like most developed nations, Japan is facing a severe loss of population, but one possible positive benefit of this is a rewilding of sorts. It is not uncommon for hikers to come across an abandoned hamlet, along with the heartbreaking sight of the possessions of their previous owners still orderly and intact. It always feels as if they walked away with the coffee still warm on the table.
Year after year, Japan also loses a number of its more remote rail lines due to falling demand. The Hokkaido town of Samani stands at the end of the now-defunct Hidaka main line, whose operations were initially suspended following a 2015 storm, before economic realities saw it officially closed 6 years later. (A small segment carries on as Japan’s second smallest rail line, at a mere 30 km.)
Our small group of travelers waited in front of Samani station, now converted into a tourist information center. We came here so as to explore Japan’s newest, and biggest, national park, the syllable-rich Hidakasanmyaku-Erimo-Tokachi National Park, designated just this year.
EXPLORE JAPAN’S NEWEST NATIONAL PARK
Exploring Hokkaido’s Newest National Park
While skiers tend to gravitate more to Hokkaido’s powder-heavy skiing to the north and west, hikers have long visited the Hidaka range’s peaks, whose centerpiece, Mt. Poroshiri, is listed on the 1964 bucket list known as the Hyakumeizan, or Japan’s 100 Eminent Mountains.
But for today, at least, the high mountains could wait. Ten Specialized EVO Fox electric bicycles were laid out on the ground in front of the station. Once in the saddle, we followed a small river up through the low hills, before undertaking the steep climb up to Mt. Kannon, so-called due to the 33 statues of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy.
The temple that once stood here was one of only three temples in Hokkaido dedicated specifically to the ruling Samurai government. Its lofty height would have had military use in providing views of the entire coastline, but today, visitors can find satisfaction in the sight of the beach below, newly groomed and opened to bathers in July and August each year.
We descended to its smooth sands, riding in and out of the low surf. The Ainu people indigenous to Hokkaido have a legend about the towering rocks offshore, a retreating chief and his wife and child, frozen in time in order to elude capture.
Cape Enrumu stood at the harbor’s far end, and the ride up proved the steepest of the day. It is due to this mount that this area was designated a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2015. As our eyes turned toward Mt. Apoi, which we would climb the following day, the very rock we stood upon was composed of peridotite, the dominant rock of the upper part of Earth’s mantle.
It was incredible to ponder the forces required to drive upward this layer, usually found tens of kilometers below the earth’s crust. But we didn’t linger long as the weariness of the day’s ride led our thoughts toward beer and food.
That evening, we tucked into an immense feast of sashimi sliced from the abundantly rich cold waters a few blocks away. There was the familiar salmon, squid, and Alaska Pollack, plus a local dish called kajika no tomoe. The night, while lively, didn’t last long. We had a mountain to climb in the morning.
Climbing Mt. Apoi
Mt. Apoi rises directly from the Pacific, enabling an attractive sea-to-summit traverse. We started just uphill at the Geopark Center. Our small band was now joined by a dozen more, members of the Mt. Apoi Fan Club, whom we would join in order to undertake some trail maintenance on the descent.
Our guide, Tanaka-san, led us past the obligatory bear warning sign to a dozen concrete pools now filled with an array of plants local to the mountain.
The trail shaded by red pine was rife with deer tracks, and mangled wooden signage raked with higuma claws. Though attacks were rare, the higuma is one of the world’s largest species of grizzly, and the damage they’d done to the signs was impressive. I’d hate to run into one lurking in the rhododendron, which stretched upward in order to find sunlight.
Hokkaido trails tend to be incredibly long, distances dictated by lengthy traverses through dense forest and creeping pine. But what made this trail unique was that we were literally traipsing over the earth’s mantle, driven upward by a violent collision of tectonic plates, with this very peak a by-product. A true journey to the center of the Earth.
After a brief detour to visit a tiny botanical farm, we began to move up the peak itself. A rocky line seemed to lead straight up the mountainside, with views of the sea finally beginning to open up, but still not far below.
The roar of a dozen camp stoves created a sort of white noise conducive to napping. Thus prone, I warmed up my bag of sculpin rice, which, due to a large dose of garlic I’d added the night before, tasted like a strong seafood risotto. Others in our group had added curry, or simply braved the powerful taste of the fish itself.
After summiting, we descended beneath the bluest of skies. Partway down, we passed a trail heading deeper into this brand-new national park. It was tempting to take it, to cross the whole of Hokkaido itself over the long line of volcanoes that the Ainu had called Kamuy Mintara or Garden of the Gods. But there were big bears out that way, plus we had trail maintenance to do.
Soaking Up the Best of Hokkaido
The morning brought high winds, and all along the seaside east, men mimicked their ancestors as they pulled long ropes of kelp from where they’d been drying overnight. The winds had died some as we reached Cape Erimo, it too part of this new national park.
The cape gets high gusts over 300 days a year. The color of wildflowers was accentuated by the black and dark green grasses that lined the cliff’s edge, and where those let up, it was the true end of the Hidaka mountain range. Tall rock spires petered off out to sea, like a long parade of black-robed monks.
In the afternoon, we did a nature walk at Tashiro’s Forest, where Yukihiro Izumi explained the incredibly vast amount of vegetation he had been nurturing over 3 decades, pulling back the weeds and reeds to eventually reveal a living supermarket beneath, spread across its 6 hectares.
It took him 15 years to find this idyllic spot, gradually recreating a similar patch his grandfather had cultivated many decades before. After a coffee on the deck of the log house he had built for himself, we moved toward our camp for the night.
Our group had the entire site to ourselves, and were thus parsed out over the various cabins, each surrounded by forest, all made of indigenous wood, complete with lofty decks and hot tubs.
My own digs were in a small van converted into a camper, a practical little vehicle that brought comfort without dominating the narrow and scenic roads upon which they most often traverse. Our entire group gathered around the dining room of a single cabin site, our dinner lavishly prepared by a chef who narrated his work over an open fire.
I snuck away at some point to strip down for a good soak in my outdoor tub. This was my last night in Hokkaido, and I wanted to relish some time in its quiet forests.
I soaked for a long while, watching the stars move through the break in the trees above, magnified by the clear air and high latitude. Ursa Major wasn’t visible, but I knew it was up there, loping in the direction of home. And likewise, the fear-tinged thrill of hiking in the domain of other great bears and ancient gardens would inevitably tempt me back to one of Japan’s truly empty and unspoiled spaces.
