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Shikotsu-Tōya NP., Hokkaido
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Clouds hid the summit as a 134-m-high lava dome formed inside the crater between April 17 and 19, 1909. It was Tarumae’s second summit dome: an earlier one, formed in 1867, was destroyed in 1874.
Ash fell so thickly that daylight turned dark for 2–3 days. The explosive eruption also formed Tarumae’s present summit crater, roughly 1.2 km by 1.5 km across.
Ash from a 1926 eruption reached Shokotsu on the Okhotsk coast, about 240 km northeast. Closer to the volcano, fragments measuring up to 2.5 cm fell around the foothills.
At Tarumae’s foothills, farmers raise Tarumae Yusui-ton—“spring-water pork”—using groundwater from the mountain area. Its producer began the local branded pork line in 2004.
The 1667 eruption—the largest known at Tarumae—was recorded far away in Shimokita, across the Tsugaru Strait. The account noted rumbling and a rapidly rising plume; geological evidence later revealed powerful explosions and flows.
In 1878, British traveler and naturalist Isabella Bird explored the volcano with a horse and an Ainu guide. Just 4 years after a major eruption, she observed the bare summit and damaged forest, then reached the crater rim.
Tarumae’s summit has a large crater, a smaller central cone inside it, and a lava dome rising from that cone. The crater measures about 1.2 by 1.5 km; the dome is roughly 450 m wide.
The dome began as a rounded mound. Over time, its top lowered and broken rock gathered around it, creating the cup-like shape seen today. Hokkaido designated this distinctive formation a Natural Monument in 1967.
The name is thought to come from Ainu taor-oma-i, often interpreted as “a high bank by a river.” It may have referred first to the Tarumae River; the mountain then took its name from the river near its source.
A wooden statue by the monk Enkū, estimated to date to around 1666, bears the inscription “taromae no take.” Now kept at Nishikioka Tarumae Shrine near the mountain, it was moved from a coastal cave to the foothills in 1799.
More than 80 kinds of alpine plants have been recorded between the seventh station and the summit. One local favorite, iwabukuro, is also called Tarumae-so—literally, “Tarumae plant.”
Komakusa may be admired elsewhere, but people introduced it to Tarumae, where it can crowd out native plants. In 2022, park staff and volunteers removed an estimated 1,361 plants as part of a campaign begun in 2004.
