Aokigahara, Forest near Mount Fuji, Japan
Aokigahara covers 30 square kilometers (12 square miles) of hardened lava from Mount Fuji's 864 eruption, its floor of volcanic rock scattered with moss-covered mounds and exposed roots beneath straight conifer trunks. The forest is composed of conifers and broad-leaved trees, including Tsuga sieboldii, Chamaecyparis obtusa and Cryptomeria japonica.
Plant life colonized the terrain following Mount Fuji's eruption in 864, when lava flows buried the existing landscape, and authorities granted protection as part of Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park during the 20th century before UNESCO recognition arrived in 2013.
The forest's name means "Aucuba Tree Meadow", and it is also called Jukai, the Sea of Trees. Seichō Matsumoto's 1961 novel Nami no Tō ends with two lovers dying here, and Wataru Tsurumi's 1993 suicide manual recommended the site; the 2016 horror film The Forest drew on this reputation.
Trails lead to the Narusawa Ice Cave, Fugaku Wind Cave and Lake Sai Bat Cave on the western edge, where ice forms in winter. Compass needles sometimes point away from north when laid directly on the lava, but behave normally at hand height. Hikers mark their route with tape, which accumulates up to a kilometre in.
Fugaku Wind Cave preserved ice year-round until household refrigerators became common in the 1960s, ending commercial ice harvesting operations that had supplied regional communities for multiple generations before modern cooling technology arrived.
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