Sanbe Azukihara Buried Forest

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Recherche et rédaction Hinato

buried forestMt. SanbeJomonOdageology

Photo: 立志堂 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) · original

About four thousand years ago Mt. Sanbe erupted and buried the forest at its foot in volcanic debris — not flattening the trees but burying them upright, roots still in the ground. They are still standing, and you can go down and look at them. An underground exhibition hall was built directly over the excavation, so the visit consists of descending beside cedar trunks that were alive in the Jomon period and are now exposed to their full buried height.

Around thirty standing trees with intact root systems have been confirmed, along with more than a hundred fallen logs. The largest trunk is two and a half metres across and stands over ten metres tall. Buried forests exist elsewhere, but almost never on this scale and almost never still upright — which makes this one of the more genuinely astonishing sites in western Japan and one that gets a tiny fraction of the visitors of the silver mine an hour away.

Informations essentielles

Horaires d'ouverture

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Last admission 4:30 PM

Fermé: Closed Tuesdays (next working day if a holiday) | Five days from the first Monday in December and in March | December 28 – January 1

Tarif d'entrée

¥350 adults | ¥100 elementary, junior high and high school students

Meilleure saison

Year-round | Indoor site, unaffected by weather

Durée de visite

60–90 minutes

Comment s'y rendre

Informations d'accès

Tane, Sanbe-cho, Oda. Car effectively required; roughly from central Oda. Admission ¥350 for adults and ¥100 for elementary, junior high and high school students. Closed Tuesdays, or the next working day when the Tuesday is a holiday, for five days from the first Monday in December and again in March, and December 28 – January 1.

Guide d'initié

**The scale only registers underground.** From the surface this is a modest building in a field. The exhibition hall takes you down alongside the trunks, and it is the vertical drop past a tree that has been standing for four thousand years that makes the visit. Allow time at the bottom. **It is cold down there.** The excavation is below ground and stays cool year-round, which is welcome in August and worth a layer in winter. **The closed days are unusual.** Tuesdays, plus a five-day block in early December and another in March, plus the New Year period. Check the calendar rather than assuming a standard museum schedule. **Combine with Mt. Sanbe.** The volcano that did this is right there, with a chairlift, hiking trails and the Sanbe Onsen springs at its foot. Forest in the morning, mountain or bath in the afternoon. **It pairs with Iwami Ginzan.** The silver mine is nearby and takes most of a day, so the two are usually split across a two-day stay in Oda rather than combined.

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