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.
From Fujiyoshida it runs 182 km to Fujiyoshida; allow about 2 h 43 of riding. The stops in between: Shiraito no Taki waterfalls, Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove and back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Mount Fuji's lava does strange things to trees. When a flow of molten rock surges through a forest, it wraps around trunks and hardens, and when the tree burns away it leaves a hollow cast, a round tube in the rock that looks like a well or a chimney. The lava tree molds at Yoshida are formed in this way, found along the lower slopes in the dense forest known as Aokigahara, where the ground is black, rough and honeycombed with caves. The flows come from eruptions of Fuji in the ninth century and later, and the forest has grown up over the cooling rock ever since.
Read the complete Yoshida lava tree molds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshida lava tree molds is where the day begins. Next is Shiraito no Taki waterfalls.
The water that falls at Shiraito has spent a long time underground. Rain and snowmelt seep into the porous volcanic rock of Mount Fuji, travel through the layers for years, and emerge from a cliff face southwest of the mountain as hundreds of thin streams, pouring over a curved wall about twenty metres high and some one hundred and fifty metres wide. The name means white threads, and the effect is just that: a curtain of silvery strands falling into a clear pool, with the Fuji-ko pilgrims once performing purification rituals here. The falls are part of the Fujisan World Heritage Site, and the neighbouring Otodome falls, a single powerful cascade, roar a short walk away.
Read the complete Shiraito no Taki waterfalls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shiraito no Taki waterfalls comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove.
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.
about 90 km into the recorded legs you reach Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove. Next is back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shiraito no Taki waterfalls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls, late in the day. Next is Yoshida lava tree molds.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshida lava tree molds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Yoshida lava tree molds. That is the ride.
Yoshida lava tree molds → Shiraito no Taki waterfalls is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shiraito no Taki waterfalls → Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove → back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shiraito no Taki waterfalls → Yoshida lava tree molds is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.