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Hidakasanmyaku Erimo Tokachi NP, Hokkaido
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
The Hidaka Range’s largest cirque earns its “Seven Ponds” name when rain and snowmelt collect across the glacial bowl, scattering pools over its floor.
One outer moraine here—a ridge of rock debris left at a glacier’s edge—formed about 18,000 years ago, giving visitors a dated boundary of the Ice Age.
Researchers found Eniwa-a volcanic ash throughout sediments down to 15 m below the cirque. They infer ash-covered ice melted suddenly, helping trigger repeated debris flows.
In 2007, just 83 of about 380 candidates made Japan’s first Geological 100—and Nanatsunuma was one of only 7 sites selected from Hokkaido.
In 2013, Mount Poroshiri was added to Pirikanoka, a national scenic heritage group honoring Ainu stories, sacred prayer places and language. The cirque is one of 3 glacier bowls around this revered mountain.
A 1955 record of an Ainu story imagines Poroshiri’s sacred lake with kelp, migrating seabirds, seals and sea lions—an entire sea-world high in the mountains. Local heritage records link such tales to the cirques.
The alpine neighborhood around Poroshiri’s cirques shelters plants endemic to Hokkaido and others unique to the Hidaka Range; government records also list Ezo pikas among the mountain’s wildlife.
