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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Aomori / Iwate
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Hashikami-dake’s ridge looks like a reclining cow, earning it the nickname Gagyūzan, “Lying-Cow Mountain.” Cattle and horses once grazed here, but local guides say the cows left the yamatsutsuji alone—helping roughly 20,000 wild azaleas thrive at Ōbiraki.
Buckwheat fields dot Hashikami-dake’s foothills. The cold-hardy local strain, Hashikami Wase, yielded well during the 1913 crop crisis, was named in 1918, and became Aomori’s only officially recommended buckwheat variety.
Near the summit, a rare spring called Ryūjin-sui—“Dragon-God Water”—bubbles out. Hashikami Town says the water deity revered here is believed to be a manifestation of Zenpōji Temple’s dragon deity in Yamagata, worshipped for rain, good harvests, and protection.
Too ill to walk, engineer Banzo Hebiguchi directed a 16-km canal from Hashikami-dake to dry Sōzen-daira from a palanquin. Completed in 1864, it broke in floods; repairs brought water in 1913, but leakage ended the farming venture 2 years later.
A Hachinohe chronicle of the 1783 famine says people climbed Hashikami-dake to dig bracken roots. After a cold, rain-soaked summer ruined crops, people also ate seaweed, wild plants, and even powdered straw.
At the 2019 Gagyūzan festival near the trailhead, 12 competitors each tackled 1 kg of local Hashikami Wase soba—about 3 bowls. Everyone finished, and the fastest completed the helping in 38.06 seconds.
An early-Meiji gazetteer describes Hashikami-dake’s broad ridge as so conspicuous that mariners used it as a landmark. The mountain was a useful reference from offshore as well as from the surrounding towns.
A 1647 Nambu-domain map calls the mountain “Taneichi-dake” and marks a route over its eastern spur as a major obstacle: the 6-ri stretch could not be crossed by cattle or horses in snowy weather.
