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 360 km round trip from Aomori - roughly 6 h 39 in the saddle. It goes by way of Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle, Kamegaoka Burial Site, Shirakami-Sanchi and back through Kamegaoka Burial Site. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Four thousand years ago, someone on this hillside in northern Honshu lined up stones in a ring and built another ring around it, and they did it carefully enough that the circles are still there. Komakino is a Jōmon stone circle, from the hunter-gatherer people who lived in Japan long before rice farming, and it is one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of Jōmon prehistoric sites in northern Japan, added in 2021. The arrangement is quite small and elegant, a double ring of river stones in a grassy field, and nobody knows for sure what it was for. Graves, ceremonies and a calendar of the seasons are all guesses, and it is better to stand there and hold the question than to pretend to an answer.
Read the complete Komakino Stone Circle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Komakino Stone Circle is where the day begins. Next is Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle.
Over three thousand years ago, Jomon people in northern Japan arranged stones into circles on a terrace at the foot of Mount Iwaki, the conical volcano that dominates the Tsugaru plain in Aomori prefecture. The Omori Katsuyama stone circle is one of these monuments, with a ring of standing and placed stones that may have been used for rituals, burials or marking the seasons. It is part of the Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2021, which celebrates a culture of hunter-gatherers who settled in permanent villages and made pottery for over ten thousand years.
Read the complete Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kamegaoka Burial Site.
In 1887, a farmer digging in the fields near Kamegaoka, in the Tsugaru region of northern Honshu, found a strange clay figure: a stocky body covered with patterns and a face dominated by huge eyes like snow goggles. The shakōki-dogū, the goggle-eyed figurine, became one of the most famous objects of the Jōmon culture, the hunter-gatherers who lived in Japan for more than ten thousand years and made some of the oldest pottery in the world. Kamegaoka was a burial and settlement site of the final Jōmon period, about three thousand years ago, and it has yielded lacquerware, pottery and figurines of remarkable sophistication. It is part of the Jōmon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Kamegaoka Burial Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Kamegaoka Burial Site. Next is Shirakami-Sanchi.
Shirakami-Sanchi is one of the largest remaining virgin beech forests in East Asia, a vast tract of mountains straddling the border between Aomori and Akita prefectures in northern Honshu. It joined the World Heritage list in 1993, one of Japan's first natural sites, and the core area is left almost untouched, with no roads or facilities. Siebold's beech, a species found only in Japan, dominates the forest, and it shelters black bears, Japanese serows, golden eagles and the black woodpecker. The trees are at their most beautiful in autumn, when they turn gold and copper, and in spring when the new leaves are a startling pale green.
Read the complete Shirakami-Sanchi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shirakami-Sanchi, about halfway. Next is back through Kamegaoka Burial Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kamegaoka Burial Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kamegaoka Burial Site sits at 187 km, about halfway. Next is back through Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle comes up about 322 km into the recorded legs. Next is Komakino Stone Circle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Komakino Stone Circle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Komakino Stone Circle closes the day.
Komakino Stone Circle → Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle → Kamegaoka Burial Site is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kamegaoka Burial Site → Shirakami-Sanchi is 113 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Shirakami-Sanchi → back through Kamegaoka Burial Site is 113 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Kamegaoka Burial Site → back through Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle → Komakino Stone Circle is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.