Trekking Senjogahara Marshland: Walking the Wetlands of Nikko

I've always wanted to see the marshland at Nikko in Tochigi, but the last time I was in Nikko, it was snowing. The marshland couldn't be accessed if you're not on your snowshoes, and to avail this tour, it would be a bit expensive. So I waited til the snow melted, and finally on the holidays at May, my friends and I were able to trek Senjogahara Marshland!

Senjogahara Marshland in the Nikko National Park is in between Lake Chuzenji and Yumoto Onsen in Nikko. It's on the highlands so we had to take the bus going further than Lake Chuzenji as most buses are only til the lake. We were on the trek though, so we didn't drop off at the nearest bus stop, and instead we walked from Ryuzu Falls til we reached the marshland.

In the old times, there was no marshland but a river flowing from here. Then many years ago, due to the volcanic eruptions of the nearby Mt. Nantai, it blocked the river and formed a lake. After many years, the lake got covered after another big eruption. Eventually the lake started to become like this until it became what's known today as Senjogahara Marshland. You can actually read this history while trekking the marshland.

During winter, some areas are not passable because of the snow. As I've mentioned in the first part, you need to wear snowshoes. It's an entirely different scene from the spring season when we came. You'd get to see the marshland covered in snow! But to appreciate this marshland, I needed to see how it looks like when it's not winter.

One could easily get lost in the vast marshland, but if you follow the trail, you'll be fine. There were wooden pathways that you need to step into while trekking, or else you'd be covered in the wet. I didn't bother veering away from the trail, nor step into the actual marshland, but one of my friends was able to step into it because his hat flew to the ground. He said the ground was a bit soft but luckily he didn't get wet.

Did you know why this is called Senjogahara (戦場ヶ原)? It's also called battlefield because of the kanji of its name. And that name came from a legend.

_{from the text in the image above:}

Senjogahara Marshland is named after a legend of a battle between 2 gods. The god of Mt. Akagi (Kouzuke, Gunma Prefecture) with an army of centipedes lost against the god of Mt. Nantai (Shimotsuke, Tochigi Prefecture) armed with snakes.

We've seen some rivers along the way that was reddish or orange-ish. Is it related to the battle? 😂

One may think that flowers don't grow in this marshland but actually there are some! It depends on the season. It was the first week of May when we were there, and flowers weren't in bloom yet. But July or August, you'd see some flowers! The most popular time though is the autumn season when the plants turned to autumn colors.

While my friends and I were all geared for this trek, some people we've come across were just wearing casual clothes as if they're going to the mall. Were we overdressed or they're underdressed? 😂

Maybe the reason they're underdressed is that the marshland is just an easy trek that doesn't really require you to wear your hiking shoes and bring your hiking gear. It's like a walk in the park. Well, I also thought it was an easy trek since it's mostly flat. The wooden pathways also helped stabilize my walk.

Or maybe those people didn't really go all the way. We've traversed the marshland for 2-3 hours, including the time we got lost on our way. 😂

The story of how we got lost was a bit funny for us, and I think it could happen to anybody else too.

We found a resting area, which is a bit different from the rest of the marshland. We thought maybe we're already out of the marshland and back to the our trekking path going to another waterfalls.

After checking out the pond in that resting area, we saw a detour sign. They've done road repairs on the actual trekking way so we should follow this detour sign. After walking for 20 minutes, we noticed we're back in the marshland again with nothing to see but only the same old marshland that we've been seeing since the start of our trek. We continued walking and even taking pictures because the plants here were different from earlier but doubts started to come to our minds.

Another 10 minutes and we saw the highway road, which shouldn't be on our path. We found a map before exiting the marshland and indeed, we were on another route. 😂 We immediately turned back, traversing the same path we just walked and back to the resting area where we stopped for a bit to eat snacks. Whew! That wrong turn costed us an hour. 😂

Luckily we weren't trapped in the marshland for a long time. It's too hot! With no big trees to cover the tracks, it's really hot! When the wind blew, it was so refreshing though. And good thing there were some benches that you could sit on to take a break from walking.

It was an easy trek! I so love it! I wonder if we could come again on Autumn or Winter.

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Thanks for reading!
See you around!
じゃあ、またね！

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^{All photos are taken using my phone unless stated otherwise.}