Nagano · JP

Mt. Katta

Mt. Katta — Kattadake, 1,758 metres, the high point of the Miyagi side of the Zaō Range — may be the easiest mountaintop payoff in Japan to reach. A road climbs almost to its summit, and from the car park it is a three-minute walk on a flat, paved path to the Okama Observatory, where a perfectly round crater lake glows emerald in the bowl beside you. What makes the peak special is not that it is hard but that it is within reach: a volcano summit, a shrine that was the goal of whole-life pilgrimages, and one of Tohoku's most photographed views, all reachable on foot in a few minutes. There is more here than the viewpoint. A gravel path leads ten minutes further up to the small white-walled hall of Zaō Kattamine Shrine on the rocky top, the crater's rim ridge opens into an hour-long walk to Mount Kumanodake, and a prefectural rest house next to the parking lot serves hot food and souvenirs on a terrace facing the mountains. Everything runs on a seasonal timetable — the roads are shut from early November to late April — so a clear day in summer or autumn is the prize worth planning around.