Horses and humans have a long history. It is said that in early spring, a horse is seen in the shape of the remaining snow on the mountain and cultivation is started after the shape appears. Therefore, there are many mountains in Japan with horses ‘Koma’ as their names. Similarly, there are mountains all over Japan with Mt. Fuji as a part of the name, but all of them are called ‘the area name + Fuji’, which is similar to the shape of original Mt.Fuji. However, ‘Komagatake’ has no originator, so each ‘Komagatake’ is an originator and the locals call it only ‘Komagatake’ without ‘the area name’.
Akita Komagatake is composed of two calderas, with a milky-white Nyuto hot spring in the north, a colorless Mizusawa hot spring in the west, and an emerald green Kunimi hot spring in the south. It is a treasure trove of alpine plants because the airflow from the Sea of Japan hits the mountains and clouds easily form. Therefore, even if the lower world is sunny, fog will be applied around the top and the temperature will be quite low even in the midsummer.
There seems to be a Moomin valley in the flower field, but recently it was described on the website that there was a personal injury due to a bear. It’s something I don’t want to encounter in the fog. Certainly there was a metal rod that made a sound of a bear repellent, but I wondered how effective it was and gave up on going to Moomin Valley.
On the way down the mountain by shuttle bus
Lake Tazawa looks like a hand mirror. I was convinced that it might be the remains of the caldera volcano.
