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Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
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Kurodake is famed for Japan’s earliest autumn color, and the first reds can appear in late August—not in treetops, but in the alpine groundcover Urashima-tsutsuji and Chinguruma around the summit.
Autumn color travels downhill like a relay: summit in late August, the 5th Station later in September, then Sounkyo Onsen in early October. This elevation-by-elevation shift stretches the display for over a month.
Those red-and-green stripes are shaped by survival: whiteleaf rowan grows along the wind- and snow-tough dwarf-pine belt, so its autumn reds stripe Kurodake’s evergreen slopes.
In 2025, Kurodake’s first snow fell on September 21. Just 3 days earlier, forest patrols found golden Erman’s birch around the 7th–9th Stations—a brief overlap of autumn color and winter’s first visit.
Autumn brings more than color: a 2024 Kurodake patrol reported an unusually heavy crop of whiteleaf-rowan berries across the east slope and cloud plain, and noted that bears eat them.
