Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido is known for a few things: beer in Sapporo, skiing in Niseko, ubiquitous uni (sea urchin) and beef.
Lesser-known is the isle’s sulphurous, belching and bubbling Jigoku-Dani, or Valley of Hell, a 24-acre geothermal crater that formed from the eruption of Mt Kuttara some 20,000 years ago. Located within Hokkaido’s Shikotsu-Toya National Park, where roiling lava pits and simmering black sulphur calderas quietly lurk under a thick blanket of snow, it certainly might sound like a vision of hell to some. But Jigoku-Dani, 112km south of Sapporo, is also many people’s idea of heaven.
