There are quite a few hiking trails on the Ebino Plateau in Kirishima (霧島山). Several were closed due to recent volcanic activity so we decided to do the still-open Shiratoriyama loop portion of the Ebino Highland Crater Lake Hiking Trail.

Upper left

Lisa at the top of Shiratoriyama. The still active volcanic event which closed several hiking trails as well as a road can been seen in the background on the left. The trail up to here started paved and wide, then unpaved and wide, then unpaved, and would later become narrow and steep.

Upper right

This is the part of the loop trail on the north side of Lake Byakushi (白紫池). This didn't seem to be a commonly visited section of the Kirishima Kinkowan National Park (霧島錦江湾国立公園) and we didn't encounter any other hikers back here. Other than the wind in the trees, the occasional bird, and our feet on the path there were no other sounds, it was very peaceful.

Lower left

This trail map doesn't mention that most of the trails on the east side of park were closed. We looped around Byakushi and headed back down the trail to Ebino Plateau village.

Lower right

This is the view from the north observation point. That's Mount Karakuni (韓国岳) in the background. Out of frame about 6 kilometers away is Shinmoedake (新燃岳) which had a 2 kilometer exclusion zone when we were there due to the possibility of a major eruption.