Hachimantai Visitor Center was added to Your Favorites!
Towada-Hachimantai NP, Akita
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
Steam rising just behind the center comes from a mud volcano, not a fire. In summer, its mud reaches about 95°C as underground gas pushes mud into a small, cone-shaped mound.
Across Onuma, a towering kitagoyō (Japanese five-needle pine) is visible from the center’s window. Akita ranks it Japan’s second-thickest; the center’s winter tour crosses snow-covered Onuma to reach it.
In 1934, journalist Sugimura Sojinkan broke his arm falling from a horse before reaching Hachimantai. His humorous account in the magazine Asahi Graph helped introduce the mountain region to readers nationwide.
Center staff patrol Onuma and check 8 motion-triggered cameras along its trail. In one week of July 2026, the cameras recorded bears at all 8 sites—a total of 86 detections.
The sundew at Onuma’s southern wetland looks jewel-dotted, but its glistening red leaf hairs are sticky traps. This tiny carnivorous plant catches insects in droplets of mucilage.
Onuma’s wetland is gradually making the pond smaller: aquatic plants and moss die, collect on the bottom, and compress into peat. The trail’s signs explain this slow transformation happening right beside the center.
Towada National Park was established in 1936, but Hachimantai joined on July 10, 1956—20 years later—when the park took its present name. The visitor center’s 2026 history exhibit revisits that backstory.
At the nearby campground, a big beech tree is a familiar partner in the center’s tree-climbing events. In 2026, participants of all ages climbed it with ropes and harnesses, then received a certificate and sticker.
