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 453 km round trip from Hashimoto - roughly 7 h 01 in the saddle. It goes by way of Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I and Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji. 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.
In the foothills below Mount Kōya, in the village of Kudoyama, stands the Niukanshōfu shrine, dedicated to the deities who protect the sacred mountain. In the ninth century, the monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded a monastery on the plateau of Kōyasan as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and he established an administrative office here, at the foot of the mountain, to manage the supply of the monastery. Nearby, the temple of Jison-in is associated with Kūkai's mother, who according to tradition lived here because women were not allowed on the mountain, and her son came down to visit her. The shrine and temple mark the start of the Chōishi-michi, the pilgrim path to Kōyasan, marked every 109 metres by stone posts, which climbs about twenty kilometres to the monastery. The sites are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is where the day begins. Next is 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.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I.
The Iseji is the eastern branch of the old pilgrimage roads to the three great Kumano shrines, running down the coast of the Kii Peninsula from the Grand Shrines of Ise to Kumano. For centuries, pilgrims followed it through forests and over passes, and stretches of its stone paving still survive in the hills, laid to keep the path usable in one of the rainiest parts of Japan. Owase, a little up the coast, regularly ranks among the wettest towns in the country, and the moss on the stones and the dripping cedar forests show it. The Iseji forms part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I, about halfway. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji.
Fudarakusan-ji is a small temple on the coast of the Kii Peninsula, in the town of Nachikatsuura, and its odd history is a sea journey. In the old days some monks believed Fudaraku, the paradise of the bodhisattva Kannon, lay far across the ocean to the south, and from this beach they set off in boats nailed shut, with a little food and water, to sail toward it and not come back. The practice is called Fudaraku Tokai, and the temple remembers the monks who made the voyage, which gives the sea in front of it a haunting quality.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji sits at 162 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I comes up about 261 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 333 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, late in the day. Next is Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 453 km.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → 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 → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.