CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
185 km from Fujiyoshida to Fujiyoshida, about 2 h 45 of riding. On the way it passes Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine, Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove and back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Seen from above, the forest on the north side of Mount Fuji looks like green felt, and underneath it lies black lava from an eruption in 864 AD. The lava poured through the trees, the wet trunks cooled it around them, and when the timber burned or rotted away it left hollow cylinders in the rock. Those are the tree molds at Funatsu, a short walk of mossy, cool tunnels where you can duck into the lava and look at the exact shape of a tree that stopped existing eleven hundred years ago. Some of the molds are the width of a person's shoulders; a few go deep enough that you want a torch.
Read the complete Funatsu lava tree molds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Funatsu lava tree molds is where the day begins. Next is Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine.
Mount Fuji has been worshipped as a sacred mountain for as long as people have lived beneath it, and the Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha in Fujinomiya is the head shrine of that worship, the principal sanctuary of over a thousand Sengen shrines across Japan. Its main hall, rebuilt in the early seventeenth century under the patronage of Tokugawa Ieyasu, has an unusual two-storey design, painted in vermilion and set among tall trees. The shrine is dedicated to Konohanasakuya-hime, a goddess associated with the mountain, with blossoms and with fire.
Read the complete Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove.
Miho is a thin hook of land curling out into Suruga Bay, and Mihonomatsubara is the pine grove that covers it: tens of thousands of dark pines behind a long beach of grey, pebbly sand. People come for the view. On a clear day Mount Fuji sits on the other side of the bay, framed by the trees and the curve of the shore, and that image has been painted, printed and photographed for centuries. It is why the grove was included in the UNESCO listing for Fuji in 2013, as an artistic setting for the mountain rather than as a piece of nature in itself.
Read the complete Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove. Next is back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine, late in the day. Next is Funatsu lava tree molds.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Funatsu lava tree molds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Funatsu lava tree molds. That is the ride.
Funatsu lava tree molds → Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine → Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove → back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine → Funatsu lava tree molds is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.