Dewa Sanzan

The three mountains of Dewa - Haguro, Gassan and Yudono - have been a Shugendo pilgrimage for well over a thousand years, and the scheme is explicit: Haguro stands for the present world, Gassan for death, Yudono for rebirth, and walking them in that order is understood as passing through and coming back. Haguro is the accessible one, climbed on a stone stair of 2,446 steps through cryptomeria several hundred years old, past a five-storey pagoda of the fourteenth century that is a national treasure and stands alone in the forest without a temple around it. Gassan at 1,984 metres holds snow into summer and opens only from July. Yudono is the innermost and its object is not to be described - pilgrims are asked not to speak of what is there, a request that has held for centuries. Yamabushi training stays can be arranged at Haguro.

What you actually see

• 2,446 stone steps - the Haguro ascent through several-hundred-year-old cryptomeria.
• A fourteenth-century pagoda - a national treasure standing alone in the forest.
• A three-stage scheme - present world, death and rebirth walked in order.
• Yudono's silence - an innermost site pilgrims are asked not to describe.

When to go

July to September to walk all three; Haguro is open all year. Two to three days.

Honest expectations

Gassan and Yudono are open only in summer - outside that the pilgrimage cannot be completed. The Haguro stair is long and slippery in rain. Photography is prohibited at Yudono. The pagoda has been under restoration with covers at times.

Nearby

Tsuruoka is west; Yamadera is south-east.