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Minami Alps NP, Shizuoka
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Three glacier-carved bowls line the Nakadake ridge. The western cirque preserves a readable glacier footprint, from steep headwall to terminal moraine, in one of Japan’s southernmost areas with clear glacial landforms.
Below Nakadake, the famous Arakawa flower field on Maedake’s southeast slope is called the Minami Alps’ largest. It spans about 100 by 200 m, with white mountain anemones (Hakusan-ichige) and yellow Shinano globeflowers.
Beside Nakadake Hut, a low “kotatsu-style” fence protects a 189 m² patch of black lilies. It blocks deer but lets ptarmigan slip underneath—a clever way to guard flowers without excluding their alpine neighbors.
Nakadake’s summit area is sandstone; neighboring Warusawadake’s is chiefly greenstone, with red chert mixed in. The Arakawa Three Peaks cross surprisingly different rock worlds along one compact ridge.
A study of the Maedake southeast cirque beneath Nakadake mapped 8 landform types and found that plant communities largely follow them. Researchers suggest rocky cirques may shelter alpine plants as lowland species move upslope in a warming climate.
In the Maedake southeast cirque, whose high point is Nakadake, researchers found 7,300-year-old Kikai-Akahoya ash beneath soil on some slopes. It shows parts had stabilized by then, while other slopes still shed rock.
