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Joshin’etsukogen NP, Niigata / Nagano
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Some 3,000 ponds stipple Mount Naeba’s summit bog, where sedges resemble rice seedlings in a nursery field. That “seedling field” is the traditional explanation for the mountain’s name, Naeba.
In 1811, local writer Suzuki Bokushi climbed Naeba and thought he saw Mount Fuji from the summit. A later mountaineering account suggested his snowy Fuji was probably a cloud: August Fuji would not be snow-covered.
When rice seedlings grew poorly, local farmers set a Naeba Daimyojin amulet on a reed by a paddy’s water inlet and prayed for the plants. Examples of these charms are preserved at Tsunan’s history and folklore museum.
Mount Naeba’s broad summit is a lava-built plateau, not simply a crater floor. Snowy winters and cool high-altitude conditions helped a vast peat bog develop across this level volcanic surface.
Sediment studies suggest Naeba’s summit ponds began forming about 7,000 years ago. Peat accumulates at only about 1 mm a year here, making the bog an extraordinarily slow-built landscape.
A peat core from Naeba records 12 visible volcanic-ash layers. Researchers matched some to eruptions at Kikai-Akahoya, Myoko and Kusatsu-Shirane, making the summit bog a regional geological timeline.
Sundews grow in Naeba’s summit wetland, where the acidic peat is poor in nutrients. Their sticky leaf hairs catch insects, giving these small plants an unexpected way to supplement their diet.
Each June 1, a mountain-opening rite is held at Naeba Shrine in Koakasawa, on the mountain’s village side. The ceremony’s timing follows the high country’s slow spring thaw.
A Nagano environmental researcher reported that trampling had eroded Naeba’s slowly accumulated peat in places, exposing bare ground and drying some ponds. National and prefectural conservation measures were being advanced to protect the damaged areas.
