恵山 - Esan - 10/17/2022

Mount Esan

Getting Started: Visited and hiked the local area of Esan on 10/17/22. I had stayed overnight previously in Hakodate, rented a car the next morning and drive about an hour+ east of Hakodate on the southeastern "claw" peninsula of Hokkaido. Mount E also known as Esan or 恵山 sits within the Esan prefectural park. When I arrived, the weather was partly cloudy, went to full clouds, then eventually to some gaps with sunlight. There were only 2 other vehicles in the lot but noone in sight. I spent about 2.5 hours on the ground walking around however as this was my first hike as part of a 2 month trip, I was a bit ill-prepared on gear lacking bear bells and other necessary safety equipment for the area. The Esan prefectural park is filled with large Hokkaido brown bears also known as Ussuri Brown bears. There was fresh bear scat and tracks pretty much everywhere which raised my alert level. They are known to range in weight of 400 kg (880 lb), or possibly up to 450 kg (990 lb) to 550 kg (1,210 lb)...so not something you really want to mess around with. I will be posting the full video, photo and information series on my YouTube Channel and you can also find more on this volcano at Geological Survey of Japan here for Esan.

AllTrails Link? I was not using AllTrails yet as Mount Esan area was officially my first hike. It also looks like noone has hiked or mapped any of Mount Esan Trails using AllTrails. I did however use the 3D mapping overlays in AllTrails and modifying the image to draw my own lines to illustrate the short hike I took in this area (shown below in 3rd image down)

Red lines were my hiking/walking path. The Yellow area is the parking lot. I only minimally hiked this park as a result of preparation but do plan to return at some point in the future to both hike the park more fully and to stay at the local onsen.

As mentioned above I was not really prepared and was using each hike to learn what gear I needed and would work for me in that environment along the way. Here is a short video of the bear poop and paw print to give you an illustration of how big bears are.