Japan's long volcanic history has
produced scenery of immeasurable fascination. Some of the country’s most
visible, stunning and active geological sites can be found on Kyushu, the furthest
southwest of Japan’s four main islands.
Mt. Aso, sitting a bit north of the
center of the island, has by all evidence blown its massive top four times over
the last 270,000 years, resulting in a caldera 25 kilometers long and 18 kilometers wide. Aso-san thus stands as Japan’s second biggest, the world’s second biggest
active, and the world’s largest inhabited caldera.
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| Mt. Aso, smoking in the caldera. |
While belching millions of tons of hot nasty
stuff into the air over the eons, some of it landing a hundred miles away, Mt.
Aso has covered the surrounding landscape with millions more tons of lava
which, as it cooled, formed the basalt columns and the wrinkled layers of rock
seen all along the Takachiho Gorge.
It took eons, but the Gokase River has
managed to create a kilometer-long place of playful geological intrigue (and, in
turn, polite pockets of Japanese tourism).
I’ve read there’s a trail, some twelve
kilometers long, that runs from the visitor center in the town of Takachiho,
past the below-mentioned Takachiho Shrine, along the gorge and into the
nearby hills to another shrine before winding back toward town where you will find plenty of encouragement in spending your yen to rehabilitate your parched, famished, wobbly-legged carcass.
