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Towada-Hachimantai NP, Aomori
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Local grilled hime-masu began at Nenokuchi: eggs from Hokkaido’s Lake Shikotsu arrived in 1902 for a simple shore hatchery; fry were released in 1903. The landlocked sockeye’s Ainu name, kaba-cheppo, means “thin fish.”
Lake Towada has only one natural outlet: Nenokuchi. Around 15,000 years ago, a breach in the caldera rim sent a huge flood downslope, carving Oirase Gorge into volcanic deposits—the start of the stream you can follow from here.
About 300 m below Nenokuchi, a gate meters lake water into Oirase. During a 2021 drought, Aomori tracked whether releases met the 5.2 m³/s daytime scenic-flow target—a reminder that the gorge’s celebrated current is partly managed.
A 1934 village petition reveals Nenokuchi’s early tourism boom: before a road reached nearby Utarube, it was the eastern shore’s only sightseeing-boat departure point. Later, tour crowds at Utarube had to board by stepping between boats tied together.
A 1693 stone at Nenokuchi marks a new road to Lake Towada. Nearby, the main Gonohe pilgrimage route passed Choshi Great Falls and Utarube on its way to Towada Shrine.
An old postcard’s “Nenokuchi Waterfall” is not the lake outlet: it names nearby Choshi Great Falls. Aomori Prefectural Museum found that an 1807 travel diary used the related name “Root-mouth waterfall” for the same falls.
The riverside trail from Nenokuchi began as famine-relief work in 1903: a forest path only 4 shaku (about 1.2 m) wide. Five years later, Ōmachi Keigetsu’s travel writing helped make this then-little-known lake and gorge famous across Japan.
