Shirakami-Sanchi and Futatsumori Site

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Shirakami-Sanchi

   Shirakami-Sanchi is one of the largest remaining virgin beech forests in East Asia, a vast tract of mountains straddling the border between Aomori and Akita prefectures in northern Honshu. It joined the World Heritage list in 1993, one of Japan's first natural sites, and the core area is left almost untouched, with no roads or facilities. Siebold's beech, a species found only in Japan, dominates the forest, and it shelters black bears, Japanese serows, golden eagles and the black woodpecker. The trees are at their most beautiful in autumn, when they turn gold and copper, and in spring when the new leaves are a startling pale green.

   Read the complete Shirakami-Sanchi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Shirakami-Sanchi is where the day begins. Next is Kamegaoka Burial Site.

2. 2. Kamegaoka Burial Site

   In 1887, a farmer digging in the fields near Kamegaoka, in the Tsugaru region of northern Honshu, found a strange clay figure: a stocky body covered with patterns and a face dominated by huge eyes like snow goggles. The shakōki-dogū, the goggle-eyed figurine, became one of the most famous objects of the Jōmon culture, the hunter-gatherers who lived in Japan for more than ten thousand years and made some of the oldest pottery in the world. Kamegaoka was a burial and settlement site of the final Jōmon period, about three thousand years ago, and it has yielded lacquerware, pottery and figurines of remarkable sophistication. It is part of the Jōmon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, listed by UNESCO in 2021.

   Read the complete Kamegaoka Burial Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kamegaoka Burial Site comes up about 113 km into the recorded legs. Next is Futatsumori Site.

3. 3. Futatsumori Site

   Futatsumori is a gentle hilltop near the town of Shichinohe in Aomori prefecture, overlooking Lake Ogawara, and to an untrained eye it is simply a grassy field among woods and farmland. But this is one of the largest shell mounds in the Tōhoku region, piled up by Jōmon people over thousands of years as they gathered shellfish from the lake and the sea, and it belongs to the same World Heritage group of Jōmon sites as the better-known Sannai-Maruyama. The shell heaps, rich in calcium, neutralised the acid soil and preserved bones, tools and ornaments that would otherwise have dissolved.

   Read the complete Futatsumori Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 226 km into the recorded legs you reach Futatsumori Site. Next is back through Kamegaoka Burial Site.

4. 4. back through Kamegaoka Burial Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kamegaoka Burial Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Kamegaoka Burial Site, late in the day. Next is Shirakami-Sanchi.

5. 5. Shirakami-Sanchi

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Shirakami-Sanchi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Shirakami-Sanchi. That is the ride.