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Kirishima Kinkowan NP, Miyazaki / Kagoshima
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Karakunidake’s summit crater is 900 m wide and 300 m deep, formed about 17,000 years ago. A later blast broke its northwest rim, so from Ebino Plateau one mountain appears to have 2 peaks.
Few mammals or birds live high on Karakunidake, yet dragonflies gather at the summit to catch smaller insects swept upward by the wind—a lively little hunting ground above the forest.
At Ebino’s spring opening for Karakunidake, a Shinto rite asks for climbers’ safety; the local welcome has included hot-spring eggs, drinks and a commemorative handprint keepsake.
Near Karakunidake’s Ebino Plateau trailhead grows nokai-do, a wild crabapple found nowhere else in the world. Its streamside habitat became a National Natural Monument in 1923.
A local tale gives nearby Onami Pond below Karakunidake its name: Onami, a headman’s long-awaited daughter, plunged into the lake and was revealed as the Dragon King’s incarnation.
韓国岳 is often explained by a tale that its summit view reached as far as Korea. Miyazaki Prefectural Library also records the old spelling “虚国岳” and other theories, so the name has more than one story.
Just south of Karakunidake sits Onami Pond, Japan’s highest-elevation crater lake, at 1,239 m. Its 1.9 km shoreline sometimes freezes completely in winter.
Yellow-flowered kirishima-mizuki blooms on Karakunidake in spring. Within Kyushu, this tree is found only in the Kirishima mountains—and it was first discovered here.
At about 1,400 m, Karakunidake’s trees thin into broad patches of Miyama-Kirishima azalea and dwarf bamboo. Lower down, red pines grow smaller and more crooked, likely because they stand closer to volcanic activity.
