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Daisen-Oki NP, Shimane
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Around 4,000 years ago, an eruptive phase formed the domes that shape Sanbe’s modern skyline and buried a Jōmon forest at nearby Azukihara under more than 10 m of ash and debris. Its trees still stand underground.
In the 8th-century Izumo Fudoki’s Kunibiki myth, the god who hauled new land into Shimane tied his pulling rope to Sanbe as a stake. The mountain was then called Sahime-yama.
At Sanbe’s foothills, farmers have grown native Sanbe buckwheat since the Edo period. Volcanic-ash soil and highland temperature swings suit it; its small, firm grains give the soba a deep, slightly bitter taste.
The crater is ringed by peaks named like a family: Osanbe (“Male”), Mesanbe (“Female”), Kosanbe (“Child”) and Magosanbe (“Grandchild”). Male Sanbe leads the family at 1,126 m.
Male Sanbe’s summit grassland is naturally wind-swept; most broad meadows lower down are human-made pasture and hayfields. In the Meiji era, around 3,000 cattle grazed on the volcanic foothills.
On Male Sanbe’s north approach, Himenogaike once had 8 floating islands made from intertwined plant roots; only 1 remains, because reeds eventually rooted into the lakebed. Wind used to move the little rafts.
Male Sanbe’s north slope shelters part of a 123-ha beech-rich forest designated a National Natural Monument in 1969 for its representative original forest and rare plant community.
