Mount Tsukuba 筑波山

The double peak

One of the peculiarities of Mount Tsukuba is to be composed - unlike most Japanese mountains - of non-volcanic rocks such as granite or gabbro, which favors the local vegetation. Another characteristic, more notable, is to complete its summit with a double peak, understood in the Japanese imagination as a "couple" . The male peak "nantai" rises to 871 meters and the female peak "nyotai" to 877 meters . Its nickname "purple mountain" comes from the color it takes on in the morning and early evening.

A floral paradise

Mount Tsukuba hosts an extremely diverse flora. At its feet, there are mountain cherry trees, Japanese red pines, cryptomerias or Japanese cedars, while higher up, beeches and Japanese maples dominate. The ascent between mid-February and mid-March is an opportunity to cross a sea of flowering plum trees , more than thirty species offering their light pink flowers in spring.

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The legend of the mountain

Mount Tsukuba is the subject of several Japanese ancestral legends. One of them relates that a divinity descended from the heavens and asked the mountains for a refuge for the night. Mount Fuji, proud and arrogant, refused, while Mount Tsukuba, more modest, offered his asylum , as well as food and drink. As a result, Mount Fuji is afflicted with sterility coupled with a cold and lonely environment, while Mount Tsukuba is a land of choice for floral richness and changing colors with each season.

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Moreover, in Japanese folklore, the nantai represents the male deity Izanagi while the nyotai would be Izanami , the two divine entities that gave birth to Japan, its people and its other deities.