Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja 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.
From Hashimoto it runs 269 km to Hashimoto; allow about 4 h 48 of riding. The stops in between: 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 - Niukanshôfu-jinja
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja 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 - Niukanshôfu-jinja. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja to Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K
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 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 - Niukanshôfu-jinja
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.