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Shikotsu-Tōya NP., Hokkaido
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The main summit crater, Chichigama (“Father Cauldron”), is about 700 m across and 200 m deep. From the rim, its steep walls reveal a huge bowl carved into Ezo Fuji’s crown.
Later eruptions punched 2 overlapping smaller craters into the main crater’s northwest rim. The local map gives them a volcanic family of names: Chichigama (Father), Hahagama (Mother), and Kogama (Small Cauldron).
During the snowmelt season, water gathers in the main crater, turning it into a temporary crater lake. It is a seasonal transformation—not a permanent lake—inside this high volcanic bowl.
Geologists distinguish 4 crater groups around Yotei’s summit, with rocks pointing to separate magma systems. The youngest known eruption, about 2,500 years ago, came from the Kitayama group.
Yotei’s summit alpine-plant belt became a national Natural Monument on March 3, 1921. More than 100 alpine plant species flower above 1,700 m in July and early August, around the crater country.
A 2021–22 study measured soil temperatures down to 9 m at the northwestern Kitayama site. The ground froze to about 2.2 m, but researchers found no permafrost there—even though models had suggested it might occur.
