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Hidakasanmyaku Erimo Tokachi NP, Hokkaido
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An Ainu uwepeker recorded from Kawakami Matsuko in 1986 tells of a person climbing Poroshiri to see its sea-like summit lake. The kelp they carry home turns out to be a serpent deity.
There is no continuous trail or refuge hut along much of the Hidaka main ridge. Many summer routes leave ordinary hiking behind, requiring stream travel, route-finding on faint tracks, or bushwhacking.
Poroshiri means “big mountain” in Ainu. Traditions also describe its summit as a kamuy mintara, or “garden of the kamuy”; a legendary summit lake is thought to be the Seven Ponds Cirque.
Modern recreational mountaineering took off with university expeditions in the 1920s. Goro Matsukawa’s team climbed Memuro in 1923; in 1925, Hidegoro Ito led an expedition to 2,052-meter Poroshiri, the range’s highest peak.
In 1929, climber and writer Hidegoro Ito made the first solo ascent of Kita-Tottabetsu-dake, without local guides or porters—a rare achievement when maintained trails and climbing infrastructure were scarce.
After most peaks had been climbed, mountaineers sought new challenges in long traverses. In 1956, the Academic Alpine Club of Hokkaido completed the first winter traverse of the range: 40 kilometers along the main ridge.
Some Hidaka cirques sit in two tiers, a clue that glaciers advanced here at least twice. Researchers named the older and younger phases the Poroshiri and Tottabetsu stadials, after local mountains.
Researchers have documented mountain permafrost beneath boulder slopes in the old cirques near Poroshiri. Cold air circulating through the rocks helps preserve frozen ground beneath thick seasonal snow.
Hidaka’s alpine flower fields are patchworks among dwarf pines and shrubs, not one continuous carpet. The range has 9 endemic plant species and 7 endemic subspecies, many in its limited high-alpine habitat.
In southern Hidaka, Ezo pikas have been recorded even at low elevations. Japan’s environment ministry describes these small, rock-dwelling mammals as relicts of the Ice Age.
The Hidaka range is a rare geological cross-section: plate collision lifted and folded rocks normally buried deep in Earth’s crust up to the surface, exposing clues to the mountains’ remarkable formation.
