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Hakusan NP, Ishikawa
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Hakusan’s largest summit pond, Midorigaike, is linked to a 1042 steam eruption. The 1163 chronicle Shirayama-ki describes two youths hurling earth and stones that buried a lodge; one hollow became the pond.
For medieval Hakusan ascetics, circling all 7 summit ponds was a miniature pilgrimage. Mandalas pictured Midorigaike as the mountain deity’s home, and a local belief promised longer life to anyone who drank its water.
Senjagaike is often hidden beneath snow: the crater holds Hakusan’s only perennial snowfield, with its thickest parts reported over 10 m even in August. Legend says that snow seals 1,000 serpents below.
Senjagaike’s perennial snowfield has an unusually long record: a 2024 study compiled late-season size data reaching back to 1961 and found that its area and volume have been trending downward.
Near Chinoike, the circuit crosses boulders scattered through pale ash—deposits of a pyroclastic flow, a hot avalanche of rock, ash, and volcanic gas. Hakusan’s recorded 1554–1556 eruption produced a small one.
Among the boulders near Chinoike, some plants under 10 cm tall are woody shrubs, not herbs. They can take decades to reach that size, growing only a few millimeters in a year.
The circuit’s alpine flora helped put Hakusan on Japan’s botanical map: 18 standard Japanese plant names include “Hakusan.” Many recall discoveries made here, but the plants are not necessarily unique to the mountain.
The Mizuyajiri snowfield, marked on the circuit, is more than scenery: it acts as a natural reservoir, supplying some of the drinking water at Hakusan Murodo.
