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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Fujiyoshida it runs 74 km to Fujiyoshida; allow about 1 h 17 of riding. It goes by way of Fujisan, Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki and back through Fujisan. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. Lakes are the scenery here.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 20 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Yamanakako is the largest and highest of the Fuji Five Lakes, lying at nearly a thousand metres at the eastern foot of Mount Fuji, and on a clear winter morning, with the snow cone of the mountain mirrored in still water, it delivers the view that sells a million postcards. The lake was formed when lava flows from Fuji dammed the valley, and it is shallow, with reed beds, swans and boating piers along the shore. In summer it is a cool escape from the heat of Tokyo, busy with families, rowing boats and lakeside cafés; in winter the crowds thin and the mountain is at its most impressive.
Read the complete Lake Yamanakako write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lake Yamanakako is where the day begins. Next is Fujisan.
At 3,776 metres, Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan, and its almost perfectly symmetrical cone has been a sacred symbol and an artistic inspiration for centuries. UNESCO listed Fujisan in 2013 as a cultural site, a place of worship and source of artistic inspiration, rather than for its natural beauty alone, recognising the shrines, pilgrim trails, lakes and springs around the mountain, and the woodblock prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige that made its image famous around the world.
Read the complete Fujisan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fujisan comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki.
Deep in the lava forests on the western foot of Mount Fuji there is a cave formed when molten rock flowed down the slopes and its crust cooled while the interior drained away. The Hitoana lava tube is small and low, but in the sixteenth century an ascetic called Hasegawa Kakugyo is said to have practised extreme austerities inside it, and he became the founder figure of the Fuji-ko, the popular confraternities whose members climbed Fuji as an act of worship. Around the cave entrance stand hundreds of stone memorials erected by Fuji-ko groups over the centuries, mossy and leaning among the trees. The site is one of the components of the World Heritage listing Fujisan, Sacred Place and Source of Artistic Inspiration.
Read the complete Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 37 km into the recorded legs you reach Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki. Next is back through Fujisan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fujisan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fujisan, late in the day. Next is Lake Yamanakako.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lake Yamanakako write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Lake Yamanakako. That is the ride.
Lake Yamanakako → Fujisan is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fujisan → Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki → back through Fujisan is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fujisan → Lake Yamanakako is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.