- Elevation 1661m
- When to climb
Mountain stats
Mt Rausu (羅臼岳, rausu-dake) is a Hundred Famous Mountain located on the north-eastern peninsula of Hokkaido in Shiretoko National Park. After taking my car from Tokyo to Hokkaido via an overnight ferry, this was the first of four mountains that I climbed in my summer Hokkaido roadtrip.
Hokkaido is known for its brown bears, which are bigger and more dangerous than the black bears found on the Japanese mainland, and Shiretoko in particular is a brown bear hotspot - so I was a little nervous going into this hike!
Every single hiker we passed had a bear bell on their backpack, myself included, as you don’t want to run into a bear and startle them. Some hikers also carried bear spray, which I considered but decided we would be fine without - bears are generally scared of humans, so the bell should be enough to warn them we are approaching.
We also made sure to climb the mountain on a holiday weekend, since I figured the more hikers there are around, the less likely there are to be bears. Even so, for the first 30 minutes of hiking I still felt nervous that one was going to pop out at any second.
As we started to climb and the weather got a little more sunny, it felt less spooky and I started to forget about the bears (actually, I sort of wanted to see one).
After 3 hours of hiking, we finally left the tree cover and came to a small valley. No bears here either, although we did spot some chipmunks running about which were very cute!
Once past the valley, we were onto the final leg of the climb. On a clear day, the peak of Mt Rausu looms before you, but unfortunately the fog persisted for all of today’s hike.
You can even camp near the summit if you are brave enough. There’s a food locker separated from the campsite, since it’s not safe to store food in your tent.
The final climb to the peak was quite rocky, and as we climbed up, multiple hikers on the way down would tell us “there’s lots of bugs up there!”
And they weren’t wrong. I’m not sure why but there was this large swarm of beetles clustered directly at the peak marker. They were small and quite harmless, but liked to land on you, so everyone was coming down from the summit covered in bugs.
The only way to get them off you was to forcefully flick them off, so after a quick picture at the summit, we quickly descended and spent a good couple of minutes removing them all.
I was really curious about what the beetle was, and why we only saw it near the summit, but I couldn’t quite figure it out! It seems to be some sort of leaf beetle, like the Encelia leaf beetle, or possibly the Japanese Galerucella nipponensis (ジュンサイハムシ). We actually spotted the beetle near the summits of our other Hokkaido hikes as well.
From here, it was back down the same way we came. The trail had a lot of low-lying tree branches, which are quite painful if you don’t mind your head.
Nine hours after beginning our hike, we were back the trailhead. We were pretty tired by the end of it! Luckily, this was the hardest hike on our Hokkaido roadtrip, and things got progressively easier after this one.
After Mt Rausu, we stayed in Shiretoko for a couple of days for some sightseeing, before heading towards our second Hokkaido mountain, Mt Shari.
Hiking course details
| Date climbed | Length | Course time |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-08-10 | 13km | 9h30min (the expected time for an average hiker without breaks) |
Mt Rausu has two trailheads, one at Rausu Onsen (羅臼温泉) and the other at Iwaobetsu (岩尾別). The latter is slightly closer to the summit, so that’s the one we went for.
There are toilets available at the trailhead. Partway up the trail is a portable toilet spot, which you can use if you bring your own disposable toilet bag.
Public transportation access
Looking at Culmina, which I find to be quite useful for finding public transport options for mountains in Japan, it seems like they recommend getting a taxi from the Utoro Onsen bus terminal to the Iwaobetsu trailhead.
If you only wanted to use public transport, the nearest bus stop (Iwaobetsu bus stop) is a 50 minute walk from the trailhead. However I’m not sure I’d recommend adding a long walk onto an already very long course. A better option might be to spend the night before at the Chinohate hotel (地の涯), which is directly at the trailhead.
Alternatively, if you were to hike the course from the Rausu Onsen trailhead, this is directly next to the Rausu-onsen Campground (羅臼温泉野営場). If you spent the night before at the camp, and leave your tent there while you climb, you would be able to just focus your efforts on the hiking and take the travel time a bit more gently. It does seem like people still use this trail, but a lot less frequently than the Iwaobetsu trailhead, so I would be careful of bears, especially if you are hiking alone.
Car access details
If you’re starting your hike at the Iwaobetsu trailhead, there is a small carpark available. However, most of it is reserved for guests of the nearby hotel. Once the carpark fills up, everyone just parks along the side of the road - since we went on a holiday weekend, there was already a long line of cars along the road by 5am.
Camping at the Shiretoko Campground
We spent a couple nights camping at the Shiretoko Campground (国設知床野営場), which is only a 25 minute drive from the Iwaobetsu trailhead. It’s very reasonably priced at 500 yen per day per person, and there’s an onsen (Yuhidai Hot Spring, 夕陽台の湯) within walking distance too.
The only downside is that the campsite is popular with hikers and non-hikers alike, so it can get a bit noisy in the evenings. Also (maybe it can’t be helped but) the toilets were on the smellier side compared to all the other campsites we stayed at.
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