On September 12th, the Sapporo District Meteorological Observatory raised Tokachidake's eruption warning from Level 2 to Level 3, no-climbing restriction. That's not a routine bump! It's the first time on record this specific mountain has reached that level at all.

Tokachidake sits in the southern Tokachi range of the greater Daisetsuzan volcanic system, a 2,077-meter peak popular enough with hikers that the restriction affects real, regular plans, not just a remote backcountry route. The five municipalities now under advisory are Biei, Kamifurano, Furano, Minami-Furano, and Shintoku. If any of those names sound familiar, Kamifurano is the same small town we wrote about a few weeks ago for its hop harvest. That's the odd texture of local news: you cover a place for one reason, and a few weeks later it's back in the story for a completely different one.

The warning didn't come out of nowhere. Large volcanic earthquakes have been increasing near the mountain since August 17th, the biggest one on September 12th itself, strong enough that people at the base may have physically felt it. Ground deformation consistent with magma movement has been recorded since March, and sulfur dioxide emissions have been climbing since April. There was already a small eruption at the 62-2 crater back in July.

Japan's national Volcanic Research Committee weighed in a few days after the Level 3 announcement: a larger eruption remains possible, but nothing suggests it's imminent. NHK's framing, as of this past week, put it almost exactly that way, activity elevated, risk not close. As of the most recent update, the restriction remains in place, with warnings specifically about large ballistic rock fragments within roughly 3 kilometers of the crater. There's no announcement of a further increase to Level 4.

Daisetsuzan is a big park, and Tokachidake is one part of it. The mountain most associated with Japan's earliest autumn colors, Asahidake, sits in a completely separate massif near Asahikawa, and it isn't under any restriction at all. Neither is Kurodake, the other major color-viewing peak, accessed from the Sounkyo side.

There's a reason a Level 3 warning here lands differently than it might somewhere else, and it comes down to timing most visitors wouldn't know to notice: 2026 is the 100th anniversary of the deadliest eruption in the mountain's recorded history.

On May 24, 1926, part of Tokachidake's central crater collapsed in an eruption, instantly melting the snowpack still sitting on the peak. What followed was a volcanic mudflow, superheated debris and meltwater moving as one mass, that reached Kamifurano in something like 25 to 30 minutes, traveling at an estimated 60 kilometers an hour. It buried farmland, homes, roads, and rail lines. 144 people died or were never found. Japanese volcanology textbooks still use it as the reference case for snowmelt-triggered eruption disasters in cold climates, and the Japan Meteorological Agency's Asahikawa office marked the exact 100-year anniversary this past May with a dedicated memorial site, months before this September's warning level even went up.

That wasn't the only serious event since. A 1962 eruption killed five workers at a sulfur mine near the crater when falling rock destroyed their office, and sent ash as far as the central Kuril Islands. Between late 1988 and early 1989, the mountain erupted 28 separate times, individually small but persistent enough to close Shirogane Onsen and ban climbing for well over a year. The crater currently being watched, called 62-2, is the same one that formed during that 1962 eruption, and it's been actively venting on and off ever since.

None of that means history is about to repeat itself. But it's the difference between a warning number on a chart and a warning number that three generations of Furano-area families already have a very specific memory attached to.

Both Asahidake and Kurodake are actually having a good season right now. As of September 10th, Asahidake's color coverage was already around 40%, up from 20% just two days earlier, with the official peak forecast starting around September 14th and leaves beginning to fall around the 26th. Kurodake's ropeway operator announced color starting at the summit on September 2nd, and by September 10th the colored zone stretched from the 8th station up to the peak.

Asahidake: ropeway from Asahidake Onsen (1,100m) up to Sugatami Station (1,600m), about a 10-minute ride, Japan's only ropeway that climbs above the tree line into true alpine terrain. The loop trail past Meoto-ike ponds, the fumarole vents, and Sugatami-no-ike pond is the classic route.

Kurodake: ropeway from Sounkyo Station (670m) to the 5th station (1,300m), about 7 minutes, reachable by public bus if you don't have a car.

Both operators charge a traffic congestion cooperation fee for private vehicles during peak color weekends, and both post daily bloom and access updates on their official sites. Worth checking the morning you go rather than relying on a date range, mountain weather changes fast, and so does the color line.

Tokachidake will likely stay restricted for a while yet. The rest of Daisetsuzan isn't waiting on it.

Tokachidake is currently at eruption warning Level 3. What does Level 5, the highest level on Japan's scale, actually require?

A) Extra caution near the crater B) No climbing allowed above a certain elevation C) Full evacuation of residential areas D) A temporary ban on drone flights

Keep reading — the answer's waiting for you at the bottom of this issue.

Hanasaki Port in Nemuro has landed more sanma than any other port in Japan for 15 straight years. Whatever's happening with this fish nationally, Hanasaki is usually the first place to show it, and this year it showed early.

When the season opened in mid-August, boats came back with almost nothing worth boasting about. Fish were running as small as 40 grams, barely a third of normal size, and scarcity pushed one early lot at auction to an eye-watering ¥25,000 per kilogram. By the time that batch reached Sapporo's central market two days later, retail shops were selling individual fish for ¥4,000. Customers who remembered buying sanma for ¥100 apiece weren't shy about saying so.

Here's something that doesn't show up in national coverage: back in Nemuro itself, the same fish was going for closer to ¥380. That gap, ¥380 at the port versus ¥4,000 three hours down the road in Sapporo, is really the whole story of this season in one number. Scarcity plus distance from the source multiplies fast.

By September 8th, Hanasaki had its first real day of the season, 28 boats landing about 520 tons in a single morning, the port's first time clearing 500 tons this year. The average fish was still small, around 110 grams, well under a typical season's norm, but sizes were finally trending up, with some boats pulling in fish over 130 grams. Auction prices came back down to earth too, topping out around ¥1,026 per kilogram, a different world from that ¥25,000 outlier in August. Fishermen at the dock were cautiously upbeat: not a great size yet, but the volume's finally showing up, and there's real hope it keeps improving.

That's against a rough backdrop nationally. Japan's Fisheries Research and Education Agency put this year's total resource forecast at roughly 429,000 tons, down 60% from 2025 and the lowest number since tracking began in 2003. Whatever's happening at Hanasaki, it's happening inside a genuinely bad year for the species as a whole.

If you're buying in Sapporo or anywhere off the coast, expect to pay more than last year no matter what, that gap between port price and city price isn't closing anytime soon. But the trend at Hanasaki since early September is a real, measurable improvement, not just hope. If sanma showed up small and pricey for you in late August, it's worth checking again now. The fish getting bigger and the port finally moving real volume both point the same direction.

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Japan's volcanic warning scale runs 1 to 5. Level 1 is normal, Level 2 restricts the area right around the crater, and Level 3, where Tokachidake sits now, bans climbing entirely. Level 4 means at-risk residents, elderly people and others who'd need extra time, should start preparing to evacuate. Level 5 means everyone in the affected area actually goes. Levels 4 and 5 are officially classified as "special warnings" in Japan, the same top tier used for the most severe earthquake and tsunami alerts. Japan monitors 111 active volcanoes this way, around a tenth of the world's total.

See you out there. · また木曜日に。