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Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
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A tourist road was planned to cross Akadake and continue to present-day Asahidake Onsen. Conservationists helped stop the extension in 1967; only the road to Ginsendai was completed, so the summit approach remains a trail.
Akadake’s Komakusa-daira is nursery to the Usuba-kicho, a butterfly found nowhere else in Japan outside Daisetsuzan. Its caterpillars eat komakusa and take nearly 2 years, including 2 winters, to mature.
The park council explains that Akadake is named for its slopes turning red with autumn foliage. High-elevation leaves in Daisetsuzan begin changing in late August, while nearby Ginsendai’s celebrated display peaks around mid-September.
Akadake is one of the peaks preserving older volcanic rocks on the rim of Ohachidaira caldera. The basin formed about 30,000 years ago, when a huge eruption caused the mountain group’s center to collapse.
At Akadake’s Komakusa-daira, citizen-scientist records showed 12 of 16 flower species bloomed earliest in warm 2010. The community’s bloom window lasted 48 days, compared with 64 in cold 2009.
Ginsendai, Akadake’s trailhead, sits at 1,500 m—the highest elevation in Hokkaido reached by public road. Its name came from a belief that the spot was the source of Sounkyo’s Ginga Falls.
