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Daisen-Oki NP, Tottori
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At 1,709 m, Misen is the summit reached by Daisen’s standard trail—but it is not the mountain’s highest point. Kengamine rises to 1,729 m; severe collapse makes the ridge traverse dangerous, so Misen is the practical summit.
Misen is a lava dome, built as thick, viscous dacite pushed up and piled around a vent. Geological Survey of Japan research dates the Misen eruption to 28,600 years ago; nearby Sankōhō erupted later, about 20,800 years ago.
The 8th-century Izumo Fudoki calls Daisen Hinokami-dake (“Fire-God Peak”). In its land-pulling myth, a god used the mountain as a stake to tie a rope while hauling the Miho Peninsula into Izumo.
The annual Buddhist Misen Zenjo was once the only sanctioned summit climb: monks carried sutras, gathered medicinal mugwort and drew water from summit ponds. Renamed Mohitori after 19th-century religious reforms, the rite is still held each July.
Near Misen’s summit, an 8-hectare stand of native karaboku (Japanese dwarf yew) is Japan’s largest. Daisen also marks the shrub’s southwestern range limit, and the rare grove is protected as a national Special Natural Monument.
By 1985, trampling had left Misen’s summit largely bare, with erosion gullies. The “One Tree, One Stone” campaign asked climbers to carry stones uphill to stabilize soil and support replanting—a local-led restoration effort that continues today.
