Gods, myths & wonders of Japan’s National Parks

2024 marked the 90th anniversary of Japan’s national parks—first established to satisfy a growing domestic interest, and stimulate the curiosity of foreign travelers. The events of the century that followed have changed the country almost beyond recognition in some ways. Many first-time arrivals from abroad now tend to expect a nation of dynamic, even futuristic cities, defined by high-speed transport and high-tech infrastructure. Between those spaces, they might also envision historic gardens, palaces, and tea houses, preserved or restored from the Edo, Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods.

But the national parks remain somewhat lesser known, perhaps, within the legacy of that latter era. As of June 2024, their number has grown to 35, protecting some of Japan’s most beautiful natural environments. And while they may reach into regions far removed from the urban world, their flourishing also depends on careful human management and harmonious coexistence with the people who live in and around these domains.

Thus, assured of unobtrusive support by way of hiking trails, information centers, and guided tours in places, the visitor can discover a different Japan for every park they enter. The selections below cover a vast range of territory on or around the islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Each park reposes in its own rich ecosphere of plants and animals, with its own native myths and legends arising from particular features of the land or seascape.

To explore these environments means not only enjoying rural Japan in all its raw physical beauty, but also passing into other realms of elder gods and animating spirits.

Daisetsuzan

The Ainu people indigenous to the northern Japanese archipelago, and especially to the island of Hokkaido, believe that when the gods descend from their realm to ours, they manifest as animals, rivers, and even mountains. In the heights of Daisetsuzan National Park, where volcanoes rise to peaks over 6,500 feet (2,000 meters), is a beautiful alpine domain that the Ainu call Kamuy Mintar, or “The Playground of the Gods.”

Today, the park can be a playground for mortals, too, albeit so harsh and cold in its upper ranges that even winter sports are best enjoyed a little lower down the slopes. The ski area of Mount Kurodake is small and simple compared to major resorts elsewhere, but the prevailing snow conditions at this altitude draw the season out much longer, from November to early May.

This also makes for a shorter summer in which to take full advantage of the thaw. The truly intrepid, duly skilled, and properly prepared with local information, might now embark on the Daisetsuzan Grand Traverse—an epic multi-day trekking route across sharp ridges, stark plateaus, and habitats where brown bears and Ezo red foxes shelter under the so-called “Rooftop of Hokkaido.” Snowmelt swells the waterways of Kamikawa, and rafting expeditions carry the visitor down from the highlands through glistening river valleys and gorges flanked by strange polygonal pillars of rock.

Steep initial climbs level out to hiking routes that lead over colorful fields of seasonal flowers on the Numa-No-Hara High Moor, or under vivid golden leaves as early fall starts to tint the foliage at lower altitudes around Lake Shikaribetsu. Permafrost prevails even down there, deep within the layers of rock of the foothills, cold and heat coexisting in expressions of power and beauty. Cool breezes blow through caves, crevices, and boulder fields in the summer to let moss flourish and endearing species like the pika live comfortably, while natural thermal springs warm the bones of weary travelers at onsen bathhouses in Sounkyo and Mount Tokachidake.

Myoko-Togakushi Renzan

One of Japan’s many origin stories tells of the world going dark when the sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami, sealed herself inside a cave. The other gods consulted on how to coax her out with dances, while Ame no Tajikarao—a deity known to boast of his strength—tossed the boulder that had concealed her high into the air. Where it fell to earth, the discarded rock “became” Mount Togakushi, the centerpiece of what is now a vast national park. Respect for that mountain is today manifested in both physical and spiritual engagement.

The gods who made it are duly honored (among several others) at five ancient shrines where mystics known as Shugendo have been paying respects for centuries. Their pilgrim trail doubles as a hiking route through a realm of tall pines and reflective waters, such as Kagamiike Pond. The cedar-lined approach to the main shrine at Okusha is renowned for its uncanny beauty.

The steep upper slopes of the Togakushi Mountain Range and other peaks within the park—Myoko, Kurohime, Takatsuma, Iizuna etc—present forgiving climbing routes for beginners, and challenges for serious mountaineers. Heavy snows in winter resorts tend to have a fine texture known as “JAPOW”, or Japan Powder,  allowing for some excellent skiing with the added benefit of post-piste hot spring baths at the likes of Akakura and Seki Onsen. Steaming bowls of the region’s signature buckwheat soba noodles go down especially well in these conditions.

Warmer months present the more leisurely options of paddleboarding on Lake Nojiri, or following the Hokkoku Kaido, an Edo period highway that now makes for relatively gentle walking or cycling over foothills and flatlands, passing orchards and rice paddies. And when the season turns again, the leaves turn to colors of blood and fire on high moors around Koya-ike Pond, across the spectacular fall foliage of Koya Marsh that extends to Mount Hiuchi, and deep into the beech forests below Mount Amakazari. A certain mystery abides all year through, this being the hallowed training ground for those mountain ascetics whose rigorous practices gave rise to the abiding myth of Japan’s shadow warriors, the Togakure-ryū ninja.

Yakushima

The Kuroshio Current, or “Black Tide,” takes its name from the deepness and darkness of its blueness, and that color comes from its relative emptiness. It’s a paradox, in fact, being poor in nutrients yet rich in marine life as it flows north up the Pacific to reach Japanese waters off the southern coast, and stream between the islands that comprise Yakushima National Park.

The current brings loggerhead turtles to nest on Yakushima itself, a motif expressed by the villagers of Nagata Beach in a folk tribute called the Kamejo Odori. Designated tours with certified guides treat these creatures with due care, and to swim or dive around them (or the green turtles more common to these waters), is to understand the seascape as vital to the nature and culture of the island.

The terrain, meanwhile, rises steeply from coastal cliffs through laurel forests and mossy ravines, to alpine elevations with soaring granite peaks that inspire a kind of divine mountain worship, or takemairi, among local communities known as Sato. Hikers and climbers can see that reverence in the shrines to locally worshipped gods on the upper slopes and peaks, above a vertical wilderness of such variety that the native plants and animals (Yakushika deer, Yakushima macaques, 1,000-year-old Yakusugi cedars) are said to have inspired the great film-animator Hayao Miyazaki and his mythic environmental parable Princess Mononoke.

The slim chance of sighting a rarer animal, the large Erabu fruit bat, may draw adventurers farther out by boat to the neighboring island of Kuchinoerabujima. There, volcanic forces have created a wild contrasting habitat of fumaroles, tide pools, and uncanny rock formations like the so-called “Standing God of Nemachi.” The magnetic power of the place can be forbidding, too, and visits are restricted during certain periods of volcanic activity.

Yambaru

Various Ryukyu Islands are said to trace the footsteps of the deity Amamikyu, as they skipped across the sea while creating them from grasses, stones, and trees. Northern Okinawa received a bumper share of the latter, and Yambaru National Park is spectacularly rich in greenery, from primeval mangroves on Gesashi Bay to vast Japanese evergreen oak forests through its interior.

For centuries, the region was famous for supplying firewood, charcoal, indigo, and the timber that built ships and castles. Today, those woodlands make for transportive hikes and nature walks, with trails through evergreen forests with bamboo groves beneath them around Mount Ibu, over dramatic limestone cliffs at Kayauchi Banta, and along the atmospheric ASUMI Spiritual Hikes that are said to bear lingering traces of these islands’ original legends. Subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest also envelops inland cascades like Taa Falls.

Many areas of the park have UNESCO World Natural Heritage due in large part to the sheer diversity of species that live amid this foliage, including abundant frogs, dragonflies, and endemic birds as rare and beautiful as the endangered Okinawa woodpecker. An especially lucky visitor might even encounter the highly elusive Okinawa rail—which is rarely spotted, but sometimes heard by its distinctive call in the early morning and evening—on a guided night trek through Kunigami Forest Park. The human inhabitants of Yambaru are notably protective of its natural world, and native culture is rooted in ancient folk arts and rituals that tend to express abiding gratitude.

In that spirit, the villagers of Ada perform a costumed sequence of drumming, chanting and dancing at the annual Shinugu in Ada—their particular means of praying to presiding gods of the mountains above and sea below. Shioya Bay, meanwhile, forms a natural auditorium for the annual Ungami Festival, where villagers race in ceremonial boats and play drums waist-deep in the water. There, against a backdrop of white and deep greenery, the local priests look toward the blue. In praying for a bountiful catch, they uphold the native Nirai Kanai belief that the gods themselves bring blessings to these islands from their unseen heaven beyond the sea.

This paid content article was created for the Ministry of the Environment, Japan. It does not necessarily reflect the views of National Geographic, National Geographic CreativeWorks, or their editorial staffs.