3 Best Sights in Hokkaido, Japan

Towering 5,448 feet along the spine of the peninsula, Mt. Rausu is snow-covered from October to June. The most accessible trailhead is 5 km (3 miles) east of Utoro behind the Hotel Chi-no-hate; if you are a fast hiker, you can walk for one hour, 20 minutes to a 1,920-foot rocky outcrop, then another two hours to the top. From there trails head west (two hours) to meet the Utoro-Rausu highway at Shiretoko Pass, or go over the ridge and down to Rausu (three hours). Check weather conditions before hiking, sign the trailhead books, and fix a bear bell to your backpack.

Aching muscles can be soaked in open-air hot springs waiting at the end of the hike: Iwaobetsu Onsen, just below the Hotel Chi-no-hate parking lot, has four steaming rocky pools. Near the trailhead and campsite on the Rausu side, look for Kuma-no-yu, two boiling pools areas for men and women separated by some unfortunate concrete and rusty pipes, but fenced in for privacy.

Mountains, forests, hot springs, caldera lakes, and volcanoes are virtually in Sapporo's backyard, less than an hour's drive away. Route 230 passes the large hot-spring village of Jozankei, then the mountains close in and the road climbs 2,742 feet to Nakayama Pass. On a clear day the view from the top is classic Hokkaido: farmland with the majestic Mt. Yotei in its midst, and on the southern horizon lie Lake Toya's volcanic crater and Noboribetsu hot springs, where the earth steams, rumbles, and erupts.

If you are unsure how to navigate Japan's bus system, rent a car to take this in.

During an earthquake in 1943, Showa Shinsan rose suddenly from a farmer's wheat field. Kept secret during the Pacific War as a potentially unlucky sign, it continued growing to its present height of 1,306 feet by 1945. It's on private land, but a cable-car ride (¥1,800 round-trip) up the eastern flank of Mt. Usu provides great views of the mountain, Lake Toya, and Funka Bay. Avoid the Showa Shinza Bear Ranch near the base—a depressing tourist attraction.