Aomori: Primeval Beech Forest, Snow Monsters, and a Mountain of the Dead

Shirakami-Sanchi: Forest Before Humans This UNESCO World Heritage site protects one of the largest remaining tracts of virgin Siebold's beech forest in East Asia — woodland essentially unaltered since the last ice age. The core zone is deliberately hard to enter, with restricted permits and no roads, which is exactly why it survived. The accessible fringes, including the Anmon Falls trail and the Juniko lakes with their startling blue-green Aoike pond, give you the character of it without the permit.

Osorezan: The Mountain of Dread On the Shimokita Peninsula sits a caldera of sulfurous yellow rock, steaming vents, a milky lake, and a stream crossed by a red bridge that represents the passage between worlds. Since the 9th century this has been understood as one of Japan's gateways to the afterlife. Blind female mediums called itako traditionally gathered here during the summer festival to channel the dead for visitors — a practice now nearly extinct but not yet gone.

Sannai-Maruyama: 5,500 Years of Settlement On the edge of Aomori city is the largest known Jōmon-period settlement in Japan, occupied for roughly 1,500 years from around 3900 BC. It overturned the old assumption that Jōmon people were purely nomadic: this was a large, permanent village with substantial timber structures, long-distance trade goods and cultivated plants. It's part of a UNESCO listing and it's free to enter.

Nebuta, and the Winter Trees Each August, Aomori city fills with illuminated paper floats — vast, violent, brilliantly painted warrior figures hauled through the streets by teams while dancers called haneto leap alongside chanting. It is one of Japan's great festivals and it is not restrained. In winter, the Hakkōda mountains produce jūhyō — 'snow monsters', conifers so encased in wind-driven rime ice that they become white figures on the ridgelines.

Why the Beech Forest Is a Big Deal Shirakami-Sanchi protects one of the last substantial tracts of virgin Siberian beech forest in East Asia — woodland that was never cleared and never replanted, with an understorey and a soil profile that a managed forest does not have. Most of Japan's mountain forest is secondary growth or plantation cedar; this is what was there before.

The core zone is protected to the point of requiring permits and is not a casual walk. The buffer zones, including the Jūniko lakes and the Anmon Falls route, are open and well-marked and give you the forest without the paperwork. The lakes are the more accessible of the two, and one of them is a startling blue that comes from dissolved minerals rather than from depth.

The Mountain of the Dead Osorezan, in the axe-shaped Shimokita peninsula to the north-east, is one of the most genuinely strange places in Japan. It is a caldera with sulphurous vents, bleached volcanic rock and a milky crater lake, understood in folk Buddhism as an entrance to the underworld — the landscape reads as a hellscape and was interpreted that way.

Blind mediums called itako have traditionally gathered here during the summer festival to relay messages from the dead, and visitors leave pinwheels and small offerings for children who died young. The site is seasonal, closing through the winter, and the whole peninsula is a long drive from anywhere.

Nebuta, and Why It Is Not a Parade of Floats Aomori's Nebuta festival in early August is one of the largest in the country, and the distinctive part is what is being paraded: enormous illuminated paper-and-wire figures depicting warriors and mythological scenes, lit from inside, built over months by teams of specialists.

The other distinctive part is that spectators can join in. Dancers called haneto leap alongside the floats, and anyone in the correct costume — which can be hired locally — is welcome to join the dancing rather than watch it. That participation is unusual among major Japanese festivals and it is the reason to go rather than watch a video.

Winter, and the Snow Monsters The Hakkōda mountains hold some of the heaviest snow in Japan, and the conifers there ice over into the shapes known as jūhyō, snow monsters — trees encased by wind-driven frost until they are unrecognisable. It is a genuinely alien landscape and it is accessible by ropeway.

Aomori in winter is serious weather rather than picturesque weather. Roads close, rural services thin, and the same conditions that make the snow monsters possible make independent travel harder.