Mount Bandai

Seen from Lake Inawashiro, Bandai looks like a tidy cone. Drive round to Urabandai on the north side and you see the other face: a raw horseshoe-shaped crater where the peak called Ko-Bandai used to be. On July 15, 1888, a steam explosion made it collapse, and the debris avalanche buried villages on the northern foot. The Cabinet Office puts the toll at 477 dead, often called the first large natural disaster of modern Japan. The same debris dammed the rivers, and the lakes it created are what people now visit: Lake Hibara, Lake Onogawa, Lake Akimoto and the Goshikinuma ponds. The easiest way up starts at Happodai, a pass at about 1,200 meters on the Bandai Gold Line, where there is a small car park. The trail is about 3.5 km to the 1,816-meter summit and takes roughly 2 hours up, passing the Kobo Shimizu spring and huts below the top; other routes from Inawashiro or Urabandai take 3 to 4 hours. The Gold Line and the Bandai-Azuma Lake Line are free roads but close every winter, roughly from mid-November until late April, so Happodai can only be reached in the green season. Bears are seen on the mountain, so carry a bell.