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 119 km round trip from Shizuoka - roughly 1 h 51 in the saddle. On the way it passes Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine, Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki and back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Miho is a thin hook of land curling out into Suruga Bay, and Mihonomatsubara is the pine grove that covers it: tens of thousands of dark pines behind a long beach of grey, pebbly sand. People come for the view. On a clear day Mount Fuji sits on the other side of the bay, framed by the trees and the curve of the shore, and that image has been painted, printed and photographed for centuries. It is why the grove was included in the UNESCO listing for Fuji in 2013, as an artistic setting for the mountain rather than as a piece of nature in itself.
Read the complete Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove is where the day begins. Next is Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine.
Mount Fuji has been worshipped as a sacred mountain for as long as people have lived beneath it, and the Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha in Fujinomiya is the head shrine of that worship, the principal sanctuary of over a thousand Sengen shrines across Japan. Its main hall, rebuilt in the early seventeenth century under the patronage of Tokugawa Ieyasu, has an unusual two-storey design, painted in vermilion and set among tall trees. The shrine is dedicated to Konohanasakuya-hime, a goddess associated with the mountain, with blossoms and with fire.
Read the complete Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine comes up about 41 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 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki. Next is back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine, late in the day. Next is Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove. That is the ride.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove → Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine → Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hitoana Fuji-ko Iseki → back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine → Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.