Hoi Hokkaido pt4: Sounkyo Gorge & Mt Kurodake

In this post I’ll show our fantastic hike to Hokkaido’s highest mountain!

….but before heading to the Sounkyo gorge where we would stay for two days, we made a stop at the mysterious lake Kussharo.

This lake has some really interesting inhabitants!

These little Marimo are small, round algae orbs that live on the bottom of the lake! They live only in a couple of lakes in the world, so this was really special. We actually bought a small bottle with two of them, including some food, to bring home, and these two marimo are living now in Malmo.

This area is ofcourse also volcanic, so there were a few “bokke”, boiling mud pools along the way! Some parts of the ground were warm because of the thermal activity beneath, and because of this, this forest is one of the few that houses the wellknown semi, or cicadas, as they could survive the harsh Hokkaido winters on these warm patches. It was soooo nice to hear the semi in this forest!

We had a nice potato stick lunch

And before heading towards to gorge we found this partial beetle on the ground. It was enormous, almost looked like a toy, and it had huge horns. It was a rhino beetle, and I had never seen one before. One horror detail though, the head was still moving…

Time to head to Sounkyo gorge! Sounkyo is a small village located in a ravine. There are tons of waterfalls and the village is riddled with onsens. There is a cablecar going up the mountain, and from there, you can do a hike to the top of the mountain plateau. This is the big mountain area in Hokkaido and Hokkaido’s highest peak can be found there too, so ofcourse we wanted to climb up there!

The first part of the hike was nice, as it was a cable car – ski lift combo :D

but then the hike started. We signed our names on the hiking register, as in Hokkaido you need to leave your contact details if you go on a hike in case you get lost or attacked by a bear…? Anyway, we did and started hiking!