What other travelers are saying about Mount Asahidake
Nice hikes after you take the ropeway. While on a good day the loop tour is very doable if you do it counter clockwise, be aware because weather can change in the mountains, make sure you are prepared for that. On the loop hike there is a variety of landscape and even a hot spring for a quick foot bath.
This place is worth visiting. This mountain has magnificent view. The ropeway was quite crowded, but it wasn’t too crowded up on the mountain. I highly recommend visiting.
Although we weren't able to complete our hike to the peak of Asahidake due to bad weather, we were still able to explore the Daisetsuzan National Park which took about 2 hours.
The scenery was amazing and the view were one for the books. Given the chance we would surely come back and hike to the peak.
Heads up though, there are a lot of bear sightings in the area recently so please bring a bear bell or bear spray.
this might have been my favorite hike in japan overall, even more than mt fuji, mt yotei, and miyajima. i thought i was missing out by going in september and not getting to see most of the alpine flowers, but the benefit of going in the fall when all the snow has melted (besides the fact that its significantly cheaper) is you can see the rock formations and multi-colored gravel better and it feels like walking on a different planet sometimes. it was incredibly quiet that day too. there were parts that were sheltered enough from the wind where you literally couldnt hear anything, not even an insect or bird call. ive never been anywhere outdoors that was that quiet before.
i did a day trip from sapporo and finished way early with hours of extra time before the last bus. did the nakadake/susoaidaira loop which had some stunning scenery in the first half, but i found the lower-elevation/valley portion on the way back to be the least interesting part of the hike, although its probably a lot better if the flowers are in full bloom. if i were to do it over, i would have done the same loop up to the nakadake springs (which isnt too far past the previous trail junction) and then backtracked and continued on to the kurodake side, taking the train back from there since i had a JR pass.
if you come here, you should definitely at least do the full susoaidaira loop. its well worth continuing on past asahidake as thats where a lot of the best scenery was
