Akechidaira is a viewing platform above Nikko that exists mostly to show off a road. The road is the Irohazaka, a set of forty-eight hairpin bends that climb the steep slope from the town toward Lake Chuzenji and Oku-Nikko, and the name comes from the old Japanese alphabet, the iroha, which has forty-eight characters, one for each bend. The upper terminus of the climb is Akechidaira, a lookout at about 1,370 metres, reached by a short cable car, from which you see the zigzags below and, across the gulf of the valley, the whole of Lake Chuzenji with the great Mount Nantai standing guard behind. Kegon Falls, nearly a hundred metres high, drops into a gorge to one side.
The Irohazaka is actually two roads, since the climb and descent are on separate one-way carriageways. The older one, opened in the 1950s, carries the downhill traffic, and the second, which came a decade later, carries the climb. It means that you will meet no oncoming traffic on the bends, which makes it one of the more relaxed hairpin sequences to ride, though the bends are tight and the gradient steady, and the surface can be wet and covered in leaves in autumn. Speed limits are low and the police are present. Wild monkeys, Japanese macaques, sit by the roadside on the upper sections and should be left strictly alone, since they are used to being fed by tourists and can be aggressive when they think a bag has food in it.
Autumn is the main season, when the whole slope turns red, orange and yellow, usually in mid-October at the top and later lower down. It is spectacular but traffic can be extremely heavy on weekends and holidays, with queues stretching back through Nikko, so go on a weekday and start early. Fog is common, and in winter the road can be icy and snow tyres or chains are required.
Nikko itself, about eight kilometres below, is the other great draw, with the Toshogu shrine, the lavishly decorated mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the shogunate that ruled Japan for two and a half centuries. The complex and its neighbours are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and worth a day on their own. Fuel stations and restaurants are plentiful in Nikko, and local specialities include yuba, the delicate skin from soy milk, and soba noodles.
Fill the tank in town before the climb, since the road has no stations. The cafe at the viewpoint is a good place to get a hot drink and look out over the valley while you recover your nerve.