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Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
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In a 1958 Astro Boy serial, a secret fort for horse-like aliens stood on Mount Tomuraushi. When the story was collected as a book, the setting changed to nearby Mount Tokachi—and the reason remains a mystery.
Shintoku Town notes that Tomuraushi is the only one of Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains whose name is written in katakana. Its distinctive spelling preserves the sound of a name rooted in Ainu language.
Shintoku Town gives “place of many flowers” as one possible meaning of Tomuraushi; the Forestry Agency records another Ainu interpretation, “where hot-spring mineral deposits flow.” The name’s exact meaning is not settled.
Tomuraushi is not simply one neat volcanic cone: geological research describes thick, blocky lava flows and domes formed at more than 20 eruption centers. The volcano’s younger activity began roughly 300,000–200,000 years ago.
At the mountain’s foot, the Tomuraushi Onsen lodge serves meals featuring local venison and Shintoku chicken, plus Jersey beef raised in Tomuraushi itself. Lily bulbs and shiitake mushrooms bring more nearby produce to the table.
Around 1,750 meters, Tomuraushi Park’s rocky poolsides can bloom like a natural carpet: local reporting names Ezo anemone, Ezo primrose, and alpine buttercup among the flowers. The bloom can last into early August.
Kamikawa Ainu have called the wider Daisetsu mountain landscape Kamuy Mintara, “the playground of the gods,” and regarded it with reverence. Tomuraushi is part of this vast alpine world—not the sole place meant by the name.
At Tomuraushi Onsen, at the mountain’s foot, source water reaches about 98°C before it is cooled for bathing. Nearby, researchers have described calcium-carbonate deposits with curious fish-egg-like and fang-like shapes.
The Forestry Agency lists the usubakicho and Asahi-hyomon among species found in Japan only in Daisetsuzan. The Tomuraushi landscape is part of the high-mountain habitat that makes this butterfly-rich region so distinctive.
A proposed road across Daisetsuzan faced objections from Hokkaido’s nature-conservation association and was frozen in 1973. In 1977, the Tokachi River headwaters east of Tomuraushi became a 1,035-hectare wilderness conservation area.
On July 16, 2009, 9 people died on Mount Tomuraushi in a hypothermia-related disaster. The Japan Mountain Guides Association convened an independent investigation, with the report intended to help prevent similar tragedies.
