Ishikari Range Traverse was added to Your Favorites!
Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
A pika-rich spot on Uni-Ishikari was known as 鳴兔園, a name often read as Nakiusagi-en. A local nature-center newsletter recalls that hikers once reached it by the Pon-Uni-Ishikari stream trail, until floods left the old approach cut off.
Not every Daisetsuzan summit is volcanic: official park research describes Ishikari, Otofuke and Uni-Ishikari as peaks of the Ishikari Range, associated with exposed rocks of the much older Mesozoic Hidaka Group.
The Ishikari River begins at Ishikari-dake, then flows through Asahikawa and Sapporo to the Sea of Japan. At 268 km, it is Hokkaido’s longest river and Japan’s third-longest—a remarkable journey from this remote range.
Ishikari-dake was once regarded as a difficult mountain for experienced hikers. Local climbers opened the Schneider Course to make the summit quicker to reach, and the town credits the route with bringing the peak wider attention.
The official traverse covers 24.3 km across the Ishikari, Uni-Ishikari and Otofuke peaks, rising from about 800 to 2,000 m. A park planning document described this as a remote, pristine area and estimated 300–500 hikers a year.
The Ishikari summit ridge is more than rugged scenery: the local tourism guide notes fields of chinguruma (mountain avens) and komakusa, often called the “queen of alpine flowers,” growing along the route.
