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Akan-Mashū NP, Hokkaido
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Inside Ponmachineshiri’s summit crater are two ponds named for their colors: blue Aonuma and red Akanuma. They sit in separate explosion craters within a larger, snowman-shaped crater complex.
Meakan is a volcanic family, not one cone: Ponmachineshiri is its highest point at 1,499 m, while nearby Akan-Fuji reaches 1,476 m—just 23 m lower, though it formed only about 1,000–2,500 years ago.
A yellow alpine flower first found on Meakan is called Meakan-kinbai—“gold plum”—because its blossoms resemble plum flowers. It is native to Hokkaido, where it also grows on other mountain ranges.
Japanese crowberry grows among the high-alpine plants on Meakan’s trail. Its black berries are edible but bitter; Ainu people used the juice in cooking, for dye, and medicinally.
From about 1,000 m up, Meakan-fusuma can spread tiny, star-like white flowers across rocky slopes, attracting butterflies and other insects. Its range is limited to Meakan, Shiretoko and the Kuril Islands.
Ainu names preserve a striking contrast: Meakan was called “マチネシリ,” meaning “female mountain,” while Oakan across the caldera was “ピンネシリ,” meaning “male mountain.”
Local accounts say Ainu people bathed in the mineral springs at Meakan’s western foot long before inns opened. The first inn, started by the Nonaka family in 1914, gave rise to the Meakan Onsen area.
About 13,000 years ago, a major eruption at Naka-Machineshiri formed a crater 1.1 km across. Later eruptions sent pyroclastic flows down the Rawan River valley about 9,000 years ago.
A small steam eruption on Ponmachineshiri in 1955 opened 4 new craters and 2 fissures. Ash reached Moshiri in Tsurui Village, about 26 km away.
Before a small 2008 eruption, monitoring at Meakan detected a sharp drop in magnetic strength 2 days beforehand. The change suggested that rising underground heat was warming the volcanic rock.
Hikari-goke, or luminous moss, may be found beneath rocks along the Onneto approach. It does not make its own light: lens-shaped cells reflect faint incoming light as a green glow.
Ashoro’s Meakan Mountain Club did more than climb: members maintained trails and organized hikes and winter ski outings to Lake Onneto. One longtime member recalled that some outings drew around 50 people.
After retiring from Ashoro’s town hall in 1997, Shizuo Terashima rode his motorbike to the Meakan–Onneto area daily to photograph its seasons. In 2000, he published the photo book “Starry Lake Onneto.”
