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.
A 178 km round trip from Fujiyoshida - roughly 2 h 41 in the saddle. It goes by way of Shiraito no Taki waterfalls, Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove and back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 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 Shiraito no Taki waterfalls.
The water that falls at Shiraito has spent a long time underground. Rain and snowmelt seep into the porous volcanic rock of Mount Fuji, travel through the layers for years, and emerge from a cliff face southwest of the mountain as hundreds of thin streams, pouring over a curved wall about twenty metres high and some one hundred and fifty metres wide. The name means white threads, and the effect is just that: a curtain of silvery strands falling into a clear pool, with the Fuji-ko pilgrims once performing purification rituals here. The falls are part of the Fujisan World Heritage Site, and the neighbouring Otodome falls, a single powerful cascade, roar a short walk away.
Read the complete Shiraito no Taki waterfalls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shiraito no Taki waterfalls comes up about 39 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 89 km into the recorded legs you reach Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove. Next is back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shiraito no Taki waterfalls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls, 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 → Shiraito no Taki waterfalls is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shiraito no Taki waterfalls → Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove → back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls → Funatsu lava tree molds is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.