Mt. Soranuma (1,251m). It’s only a 1-hour drive from central Sapporo plus a 3.5 hour hike via the Mamisu Tarn. It has been known and loved by Sapporo City citizens as an easily-climbed mountain. One of its charms is its forests. It is hard to believe that such a quiet place exists so close to a city with a population of over 2 million people.

Bankei-sanso Hut is located part way up the trail to Mt. Soranuma, and was built in 1965. At the time of the Bankei-sanso hut’s official closure by the Sapporo Forestry Agency in 1992, however, overnight stays at the hut had dropped from over 1,300 people per year in 1986, to only 183 in 1992. Despite this, however, Mt. Soranuma gets up to 15,000 hikers visiting each year, with up to 10,000 of those visitors using the hut’s facilities during the day, such as the toilets and rest areas.

The Bankei-sanso Hut Friendship Society was formed in May 1995, and the hut was re-opened, just three years after the 1992 closure. The friendship society was formed by a number of members from different mountaineering associations in the Sapporo area, who “could not watch silently as Bankei-sanso Hut, loved by Mt. Soranuma hikers for 30 years, rotted away” (Nagamizu, 2014, p. 1).

The management was therefore officially transferred to the friendship society, while the Sapporo Forestry Agency would, officially, continue to own the hut. Despite the forestry agency’s ownership and initial support in vehicular road maintenance (for access to the hut by car in summer), all financial and maintenance issues associated with the hut would be the responsibility of the friendship society. Such an arrangement at the time was a first within Japan.

In addition to regular weekly maintenance during the summer, there have been three instances of major repairs to the hut, facilitated and fund-raised by the friendship society. The first was in 2001 where the hut was straightened. The weight of winter snow over the years had created a pronounced lean towards the Bankei Tarn. To total cost of this work, which included replacing the hut’s foundations, was 9 million yen (US$90,000). This was funded by donations from over 1,000 people from around Japan. In 2006 the roof was replaced at a cost of 2 million yen (US$20,000), and in 2015, an entrance-way porch was added to reduce drafts.

The hut is maintained by volunteers who act as hut wardens on a roster system on weekends from June till October. Duties for the wardens include cleaning the inside of the hut, toilet cleaning, setting up the donation box for passing hikers, pumping water, heating the wood-fired stove, re-supplying wood for the stove, cleaning and clearing the area around the hut, etc.