Towada-Hachimantai National Park

Listen first. Under the trees, water moves over stone with a steady hiss that never quite stops. The air is cool and damp, even on a warm day. Moss covers almost everything here: boulders, fallen trunks, the edges of the path. It is soft and green, and it smells faintly of wet earth. Light comes down through beech leaves in small, moving patches. You are standing in Towada-Hachimantai National Park, in the mountains of northern Japan, where volcanoes, forest and water meet.

This is one of the oldest national parks in Japan. It was designated in 1936, in the first wave of parks the country created. It is also large, and it crosses three prefectures: Aomori, Akita and Iwate. The park has two main parts. In the north is the Towada and Hakkoda area, with its great lake, its gorge and its volcanic peaks. Further south is the Hachimantai plateau, which joined the park in 1956. Both parts share the same story. Fire made this land, and water shaped it afterwards.

Start with Lake Towada. From the shore it looks like a calm mountain lake, deep blue and very clear. But the lake fills a caldera, a huge hollow left when a volcano collapsed after powerful eruptions. In fact, it is a double caldera, one collapse inside another. That is why two peninsulas reach out into the water from the southern shore. The lake is more than three hundred metres deep at its deepest point. That makes it one of the deepest lakes in Japan.

Here is something most visitors never hear. For a long time, the lake was said to have no fish at all. Many people tried to stock it, and many attempts failed. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a local man named Wainai Sadayuki worked for years to raise fish here. He finally succeeded with himemasu, a small landlocked salmon. Today, people around the lake grill himemasu on skewers and serve it as a local speciality. One person's stubborn work became part of the region's food culture.

Of course, local people have their own explanation for the lake. According to a popular legend, a man named Hachirotaro drank from a mountain spring and turned into a dragon. He made the lake his home. Later, a wandering monk challenged him, and the two fought a great battle. The dragon lost and fled, and the monk stayed in the lake. This is folklore, not history. Still, the story is told around the shore, and you will find versions of it in local shrines and souvenir shops.

On the shore at Yasumiya stands a quieter landmark. It is a bronze statue of two women, standing face to face, almost like a reflection in water. People call it the Statue of the Maidens. It was made by Takamura Kotaro, a sculptor who was also one of Japan's best-known modern poets. It was unveiled in 1953 and became one of the last major works of his life. Walk around it slowly. From each side, the two figures seem to have a different relationship.

Now follow the water out of the lake. At a place called Nenokuchi, the lake drains into the Oirase Stream. A walking path runs beside it for about fourteen kilometres, through forest and past a long series of waterfalls. Along the way you will reach Choshi Otaki, a broad waterfall across the whole main stream. Here is your second surprise. A common explanation says that this waterfall stopped fish from swimming up into the lake. So the gorge and the fishless lake belong to one story.

The Oirase path is famous for its waterfalls, but look closely at the ground too. The gorge is very wet and shaded, and it supports hundreds of kinds of moss. Some local guides offer moss walks and give visitors small magnifying lenses to study them. Above the moss, the forest is mostly beech and other broad-leaved trees. In spring the leaves are a fresh, pale green. In autumn the whole valley turns red, orange and gold, and the stream fills with floating leaves.

To the north of the lake rise the Hakkoda Mountains, a group of volcanic peaks. A ropeway carries visitors up the slopes for wide views across the plateau. In winter, this area becomes something else entirely. Strong winds carry freezing moisture onto the fir trees. Ice and snow build up layer by layer until the trees become huge white shapes. In Japanese they are called juhyo, and many people call them snow monsters. Standing among them feels like walking through a frozen crowd.

These mountains also hold a hard memory. In January 1902, a regiment of the Japanese army began a winter training march into the Hakkoda Mountains. A violent blizzard trapped them. Of the 210 men, 199 died in the snow. It is remembered as one of the worst disasters of its kind in Japan's history. Near a place called Umatateba, a bronze statue honours Corporal Goto, a survivor who was found standing upright in the snow. The story later became a well-known novel and a film.

After all that cold, warmth. The volcanic ground here heats many hot springs. Sukayu Onsen, on the slopes of Hakkoda, is one of the best known. Its large wooden bath hall is called the thousand-person bath. The water is milky white and strongly acidic, and it smells of sulphur. The bath is traditionally mixed, with special hours set aside for women. Even if you do not bathe, notice the steam rising from the ground nearby. It is a reminder that this landscape is still alive underneath.

Far to the south, the Hachimantai area feels different. It is a high, open plateau with marshes, ponds and gentle slopes. In late spring, at a pond called Kagami-numa, the snow sometimes melts in a ring around the centre. Blue water shows in the middle, surrounded by white. People call it the Dragon Eye, and it appears only for a short time. Nearby, Tamagawa Onsen has some of the most acidic spring water in Japan. Steam and the smell of sulphur drift across the hillsides there.

The park changes completely with the seasons, so no two visits are the same. Spring brings late snow and new leaves. Summer is green and cool, a relief from the heat in the lowlands. Autumn brings the strongest colour and the biggest crowds. Winter brings deep snow, ice trees and steaming baths. Weather in the mountains can change quickly in any season. Take rain gear, stay on marked paths, and treat the moss and the plants gently.

Before you move on, stop for a moment where you are. If you are by the lake, look at how clear the water is near the shore, and how quickly the blue deepens. If you are in the gorge, listen again to the stream. It has been running out of this old volcano for a very long time. As you walk away, notice the moss at your feet and the light through the leaves. They are small things, but they belong to the same long story.