Mount Osore (Osorezan)

At the top of Aomori’s lonely Shimokita Peninsula, the land turns the color of brimstone and the air fills with the rotten-egg reek of sulfur. The Japanese named this place Osorezan — “Mount Dread” — and for over a thousand years it has been considered one of the gateways between this world and the next.

Why It’s Interesting

It looks like the afterlife as imagined by a volcano: a cratered yellow-and-gray wasteland of steaming vents and bare rock, dotted with thousands of small Jizo statues and pinwheels left for the souls of dead children, their colors whirling in the wind. Cross the little red bridge over the “Sanzu River” and you reach Usori-ko, a hauntingly beautiful milky-blue lake that the temple calls paradise. The contrast — hell underfoot, heaven at the shore — is the whole point.

Best Time to Visit

The temple opens roughly May through October. The famous autumn festival, when itako mediums are said to summon the voices of the dead, is the most atmospheric — and the most crowded.

Getting There

This is far. Take the rail line up the Shimokita Peninsula and a seasonal bus from Mutsu; the isolation only deepens the eeriness.