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Aso-Kuju NP, Oita
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At 1,791 m, Nakadake is the highest summit on Kyushu’s main island—just 4 m above nearby Mount Kuju (1,787 m). Those few meters give this rocky peak the region’s summit crown.
Kuju’s famed guide dog Heiji began as a stray. For 14 years he led hikers and sometimes helped lost climbers; hikers funded his registration and vaccinations, and more than 100 gathered for his 1988 memorial.
“Bōgatsuru Sanka,” the Kuju hiking song, began in 1952 when 3 Kyushu University students set local verses to a Hiroshima Higher Normal School mountain song at a Bogatsuru hut. Yoko Seri’s 1978 hit carried it nationwide.
Just below Nakadake, Miike stays full even though nearby crater hollow Karaike is dry—and Karaike sits lower. Miike turns emerald in summer and freezes completely in winter.
Near Nakadake’s windswept summit, lingonberry (koke-momo) grows at the southernmost limit of its Japanese range. Its Kuju community is a nationally designated natural monument—a northern-looking patch of heath far down in Kyushu.
The path from Makinoto to Nakadake passes Kutsukake, literally “hanging shoe.” Pilgrims once changed into fresh straw sandals there for a safe climb, leaving worn pairs hung from branches.
Bogatsuru, visible from Nakadake, occupies low ground dammed by lava flows and debris-avalanche deposits between Kuju’s volcanic peaks. The summit view reveals an unexpected result of eruptions: a broad, waterlogged marsh.
The all-around view of Kuju’s peaks from Nakadake is known as “Kyushu Okuzashiki,” roughly translated as “the living room of Kyushu”—a cozy name for the grand volcanic range spread below the summit.
