Good day everybody!
Today I’d love to share with you my passion for one of the mountains on the Aso mountain chain.
This mount isn’t the highest nor the wildest of them all. It’s called Komezuka and that translates literally to the “rice mountain”.
It is one of the older extinct volcano that remains. Its almost perfectly circular shape and soft edged crater and slopes are quite a sweet sight in between the almighty sheer mountains all around.
Views from the border of the caldera and closer to the Komezuka will give you outstanding pictures.
The legend tells us that when the father of Aso peeked over the caldera it was full of water, just a large lake.
He leaked the water so to leave the fertile grounds of the caldera to the locals to cultivate. That is when Aso’s population is said to have taken on agriculture over foraging and hunting. When they started harvesting, the farmers put their rice together in a little mount, that is now known as the rice mountain: Komezuka.
Komezuka is really a small mountain as its highest point culminates at 80 meters (87yards) with a 380 meter (415yards) radius . Born 3000 years ago, it remains the youngest of the mountains here. Consisting mainly of scoria, a dark volcanic rock that results from cooled magma, its crater is a unique testimony to Aso’s geological history.
Mount Komezuka is unfortunately not accessible anymore. The many hikers having been rough on the slopes, the mount is not open to the public but is kept as a wildlife conservation park.
The 2016 earthquake brought a large rift along the top of Komezuka, leaving its structure even less stable.
Local organizations undertake restoration works regularly and add some stability to the top of the mountain : we now hope it will be enjoying many more millenia in the Aso caldera.
And why not hope being allowed to climb it again one day, who knows?
See you soon over other mountain tops!
Nathalie
