Hiking Mt. Unzen in Nagasaki Prefecture

~~ NOTE: As always, the pictures below often have captions, so please click on them to enlarge and see my comments. ~~

Back in December, some friends and I decided to go on a challenging hike in the mountains.  We decided to travel to Mount Unzen in Nagasaki prefecture.  Mount Unzen is actually a group of three volcanoes that are notorious for causing trouble.  It was most recently active in 1995 and had a major devastating eruption in 1991.  These eruptions actually formed a new peak on the mountain, Heisei-shinzan.   The mountain's two highest peeks are Fugen-dake (1,359 meters) and the newly formed Heisei-shinzan (1,486 meters).  For reference, that makes Mount Unzen about the same height as the 5th tallest High Peak in the Adirondacks, Whiteface Mountain.

Mount Unzen has always been a very popular hiking destination.  But after the 1990's eruptions, the trails were temporarily shut down for repairs.  I mean heck, there was a brand new peak on the mountain now!  After finishing some major restruction and repairs, they recently reopened the mountain to the public.  Lucky for us!

So that leads us to my adventure with some other ALTs from Kyushu.  We drove out to Nagasaki on December 12th, bright and early.  To get there from Kumamoto, it takes a fairy ride and lots of driving.

Here's the route we took.  We took the Unzen ropeway (purple line) up a steep and impassable cliff to begin our hike. The red dots show the path we walked.  We walked along a mountain ridge and went to Kunimi peak.  Then we summited Fungen which has a nice view of the new Heisei Shinzan peak.  Unfortunately, there are no trails as of yet to access Heisei Shinzan, so you can only gaze at it from afar. While the whole hike was technically only about a 2.6 kilometer hike, that doesn't account for elevation changes and some very vertical climbs.  But you'll see!

An elevation map of the route.

One of the sights that Mt. Unzen is famous for is the hana borou (花ぼうろ) in winter.  This occurs when the mist and fog freezes into long thin ice crystals on the trees due to the freezing cold wind that blows along the dark side of the mountain.  It requires special weather conditions to occur, and usually melts by the end of the day.  Luckily for us, we arrived on just such a perfect day.

Okay, here are the rest of my photos from the hike!  

​Here's from the ground to Myoken Peak including the beautiful mountain top Myoken Shrine (妙見神社).

From Myoken Peak to Kunimi Peak to Fugen Peak

Fugen Peak to the ground.  This was by far the easiest part of the journey.  No difficult climbs and a large section of almost flat ground.

Up close shots of the hana borou

The Unzen region is famous for it's sulfurous smelling hot springs.  But the area diretly below the mountain also boasts some other beautiful scenery.  Here are some pictures from Oshidori Pond.  You may notice that the water in Oshidori Pond is quite a beautiful blue green.  This is because the waters from the hot spring also bubble up into the pond as well.  Due to the special mix of chemicals in the spring water, it turns the pond a beautiful blue green color. 

​Unzen Jigoku Hot Springs

As I previously mentioned, the Unzen area is famous for hot springs.  The most famous outdoor spring would be the "Hell" hot springs.  They smell strongly of the sulfur packed gas escaping from cracks in the earth's crust.  Pools of water bubble from the heat and gas as it escapes from underground.  Unfortunately it was really dark by the time we got there, so I couldn't get any good pictures. But you can always google it for more information, hehe.