Keyan Bowes

It was drizzly and cloudy the day we visited Mount Usu, an active volcano in Hokkaido, Japan. It last erupted in March 2000, smashing some buildings, the highway, and assorted vehicles but - fortunately - no people.

We took the cable-car up to the top of the mountain, and then hiked down to the rim of the crater.  Aware that this volcano had blown less than ten years earlier, we wondered if we should go down -- though presumably there wouldn't be a trail if it was so dangerous. Still, I told my companion, if it vented, there'd be no getting back in time. A kickass way to die, he said. I figured he was right. Much cooler than being hit by a bus, or lingering on with some dread disease.

The trail, basically hundreds of wooden steps, is quite a climb down (and then back up!). It was deserted but for two young Japanese women carrying umbrellas, some distance away. The trail ended at a public toilet and a seismograph.

It had a great view right into the crater, which still fumes. We could smell the sulfur as we approached it, but it was difficult to tell if the billowing whiteness was fumes, steam, or clouds. The effect was rather dramatically mystical,  as if some special effects people from an Indiana Jones movie had set it all up for us.

The other volcano, Showa Shinzan, (literally, Showa-era New Mountain) appeared suddenly  in a farmer's wheat field in 1944. By 1946, it had reached its present height. It's still enthusiastically spewing steam and fumes, and presumably is so hot that nothing much has yet taken root in the famously fertile volcanic soil. It dominates the scene on the approach, even though Usuzan is higher: the bare red mountain plumed with white against the greenery surrounding it, and the parking lot in front.


The local postmaster bought the volcano-field, and meticulously documented its growth. There's a statue of him in the garden below the Showa Shinzan.