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Shikotsu-Tōya NP., Hokkaido
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Mount Eniwa’s lava did more than build the mountain: about 2,000 years ago, it dammed the Okotanpe River and created Lake Okotanpe on the volcano’s northwest flank.
On 5 and 7 February 1972, Mount Eniwa hosted the women’s and men’s downhill races at the Sapporo Winter Olympics. The 20–60-metre-wide courses required clearing about 20 hectares of forest.
The city of Eniwa takes its name from this mountain. Municipal sources trace it to the Ainu name “E-en-iwa,” commonly explained as “a sharp, pointed mountain.”
Eniwa’s last magma eruption was about 2,000 years ago. After roughly 1,700 years of quiet, steam explosions in the 17th century opened a summit crater; a debris avalanche then ran into Lake Shikotsu.
The downhill venue was temporary: its facilities were removed and the cleared slopes replanted after the Games. In 2003, a Hokkaido conservation group noted that dense planted spruce strips differed from the surrounding natural forest.
A magnitude 4.0 earthquake near Mount Eniwa was felt in parts of Sapporo on 18 October 1981. Hokkaido University researchers found no evidence it was volcanic, interpreting it instead as regional tectonic activity.
Mount Eniwa’s summit crater faces east, and a deep fissure extends from it down to the shore of Lake Shikotsu. Several fumaroles—openings that release volcanic steam—occur along the crack.
