Kaede-sawa moss corridor to Tarumae-zan

Park up at the Morappu parking area, and walk west for 30 minutes (2km) along Route 453. There’s a separated cycle path for most of it, so you’ll be away from the heavy traffic that tends to barrel along the highway. Soon you’ll come to a bridge crossing the Kaede-zawa – note that there’s a number of bridges along the way, so make sure you’ve got the right one. There’s a pretty clear foot-path worn into the ground heading south down to the gorge floor. Duck under the main highway bridge, and you’re now walking south along the volcanic-ash gorge floor of Kaede-zawa. The first 30 minutes or so of the moss gorge is relatively easy going. After 10 minutes or so, you’ll find yourself in a spectacular, mind-bending gorge with moss-carpeted walls, suitable for most hikers.

After about 45 minutes, however, the trail transforms into a realm only suitable for hikers confident in their navigation and trail-finding skills. The first challenge is to bypass an impassible section of the gorge-proper. To do this, you’ll need to find and scramble up a very steep cliff, with the aid of some precariously laid (and rather worn) ropes. Did we mention that this isn’t an official trail and all hikers use the trail at their own risk? Beyond this scramble, you’ll be following a rather faint trail through undergrowth marked sporadically with pink tape tied to trees. Back in the gorge proper, you’ll enjoy another 30 minutes or so of high-walled moss gorge. Here and there you’ll need to take detours around impassible rockfall and cliffs in the gorge-proper, usually to the climber’s left side of the gorge. One detour in particular is quite long, taking hikers up and over a number of small gullies before returning to the Kaede-zawa gorge proper.

The gorge walls slowly lose their height, and the upper 45 minutes or so of the route lose most relief all together. At around 555m in altitude, there’s the option of detouring through a gorgeous stunted-birch glade. Not far beyond that, at the very head of Kaede-zawa, there’s a beautiful fern-carpeted gorge, again with a bit of a scramble to get out of. This upper section is where most people may start to lose the trail somewhat, so it’s best to make sure you’re always looking out for pink tape.

Before long the topography and vegetation becomes much less forest-like and more volcanic. Follow existing foot-trails along spurs to the main Tarumae-zan to Fuppushi-dake traverse trail. For those wanting to make it a loop via Fuppushi-dake, it’s perfectly possible to head up to Fuppushi and down the main Kitaone Trail back to Route 453. Keeping it to Tarumae, however, we opted to head east towards Tarumae, and took the long loop via Nishi-yama around the caldera rim. Expect expansive volcanic scenery, regardless of the route you choose to take – the world’s your oyster, but just note that there’s no access to the very active lava dome.

In this route here we had two cars, so we finished the hike at the main Tarume-zan trailhead near the hut.