Mount Odake, Akita-Komagatake was added to Your Favorites!
Towada-Hachimantai NP, Akita
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
In local folklore, a horse-shaped patch of spring snow on Akita-Komagatake was a farmers’ calendar: its head faced Iwate and its tail Akita, and the horse’s “manure” foretold a rich harvest on the Akita side.
Odake stands on the western rim where Akita-Komagatake’s northern and southern calderas join. The Japan Meteorological Agency dates the huge eruptions that formed them to 11,000–13,000 years ago.
From the Semboku Plain, Odake’s rugged profile was so familiar that it once stood for the whole Akita-Komagatake. At 1,623 m, it is 14 m lower than Onamedake, the range’s actual high point.
Every June 1, Akita’s Semboku and Iwate’s Shizukuishi open the climbing season together. At Odake’s summit, representatives exchange ice axes and celebrate with 3 cheers of “Banzai!”
A stone shrine at Odake’s summit enshrines Komagata-no-kami. Farmers from the foothills once made purification pilgrimages here to pray for good harvests—a spiritual reason this lower peak was revered.
A local guide’s legend turns the 3 peaks into a family drama: wife Medake erupts in anger because husband Odake keeps the taller Onamedake as a mistress. It’s folklore, not geology.
Near Odake’s summit, a rocky outcrop is called Gohyaku Rakan (“Five Hundred Arhats”); an old local record also names it “Thousand Buddhas.” Local accounts remember the rocks as a training ground for mountain ascetics.
At 1,623 m, Odake lies below the true alpine zone, yet volcanic disturbance helps sustain a “pseudo-alpine” flower belt. Akita-Komagatake’s alpine-plant community was designated a National Natural Monument in 1926.
The national park plan notes a small privately owned parcel on Odake’s summit—a tiny wrinkle that makes Akita-Komagatake’s protected-area table unusually precise, down to 0.01 hectare.
