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Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
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One cluster is known as Seven Blessings Rock: 7 pointed stone pillars stand evenly spaced, as if rising from the gorge. The formation’s count and shape make it a distinctive landmark among Tenninkyo’s cliffs.
A sediment layer separates Tenninkyo’s 2 welded-tuff deposits. Geologists infer the pyroclastic flows came at least 100 years apart; in between, debris flows carried boulders up to about 1 m.
Water trickles down the sheer monolith called Tear Rock. Local legend says it is the tears of a celestial maiden who lost her feather robe—a charming story, rather than a geological explanation for the water.
Tenninkyo’s hot spring was found in 1894 during mineral prospecting, then opened in 1897 as Matsuyama Onsen. Its first outdoor bath clung to these cliffs, reached from the inn by a small bridge.
These columns aren’t cooled lava. They formed in welded tuff: hot volcanic ash, pumice and rock fragments compacted and fused together, then cracked as the rock cooled and shrank.
Tenninkyo’s columnar cliffs extend for about 8 km, with some reaching roughly 200 m high. The joints are spaced 2–5 m apart, so these “pillars” are vast rock blocks, not slender columns.
