Kôyasan - Jison-in and Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
269 km
Riding-time estimate
4 h 48
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
269 km from Hashimoto to Hashimoto, about 4 h 48 of riding. On the way it passes Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi and back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Kôyasan - Jison-in
Before you ride up to Mount Koya, the great mountain monastery of Shingon Buddhism, stop at its doorstep. Jison-in sits in the Kii river valley at Kudoyama, below the mountain, and it was founded by Kukai, the monk also known as Kobo Daishi, in the early ninth century as the administrative office and supply base for the new monastery above. Its most loved story concerns his mother. Women were barred from Koyasan for over a thousand years, so she lived here, and tradition says Kukai walked down nine times a month to visit her. That, the locals will tell you, is where the name Kudoyama, nine-times mountain, comes from.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kôyasan - Jison-in is where the day begins. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
2. Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K
Mount Kōya is one of Japan's great sacred places, a high basin in the mountains of northern Wakayama where the monk Kūkai founded a monastic centre for Shingon Buddhism in the early ninth century. Today it is a town of over a hundred temples, many of which take in overnight guests, set among towering cedars. South of the summit plateau, deep in the forested ridges, run the old pilgrim trails that link Kōya with the Kumano shrines, part of the network inscribed by UNESCO as the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
3. Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi
The Ômine Okugakemichi is not a road at all, at least not one you can ride. It is a mountain trail that runs for about a hundred kilometres along the spine of the Ômine range in the Kii peninsula, linking Yoshino in the north with Kumano in the south, over peaks, ridges and rock faces. For more than a thousand years, yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition, have walked it as a spiritual practice, combining Buddhist, Shinto and older mountain beliefs, with rituals at sacred rocks, waterfalls and cliffs along the way. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed in 2004.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Kôyasan - Jison-in. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Kôyasan - Jison-in to Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K
Kôyasan - Jison-in → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K to Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi to back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K to Kôyasan - Jison-in
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Kôyasan - Jison-in is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.