Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Trails

The Kumano Kodo threads the forested spine of the Kii Peninsula - a network of pilgrimage trails walked for more than a thousand years by emperors and commoners alike toward the three grand shrines of Kumano, and inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 among the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes of the Kii Mountain Range. The Nakahechi route is the classic multi-day walk: moss-slicked stone paving under cedar and cypress, small oji shrines marking the stages, ridge teahouse ruins, and villages with family-run lodgings feeding walkers by the woodstove. The payoffs land in sequence - Hongu Taisha in its cypress solemnity, the colossal torii rising from the Oyunohara floodplain, the riverside Hayatama shrine at Shingu, and steaming Yunomine Onsen, where pilgrims have boiled eggs and purified themselves in the same hot water for centuries.

History

The Kumano area was a place of nature worship mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, and its three mountains were revered by emperors, nobles and commoners alike; the first imperial pilgrimage is said to have been that of Emperor Uda in 908, and such journeys were made 94 times over 374 years until Emperor Kameyama's in 1281, many of them by retired emperors in the 11th and 12th centuries. In the Muromachi period, 1333-1573, samurai and commoners took to the routes in such numbers that they were called a pilgrimage of ants, and in the Edo period up to 800 people are recorded staying overnight at inns near Kumano in a single day. The Shrine Combining Order of 1906 sharply reduced the number of shrines along the routes, and many natural sites they had protected were lost, though some were saved through the work of the ecologist Minakata Kumagusu. In July 2004 parts of the routes and the three grand shrines became a World Heritage Site (Wikipedia, Kumano Kodō).

What's there

• The Nakahechi path - moss-stoned forest miles between oji shrines.
• Kumano Hongu Taisha - the great cypress-dark shrine at the network's heart.
• The Oyunohara torii - the colossal gate standing alone on the old shrine plain.
• Yunomine Onsen - the pilgrim hot-spring hamlet, still steaming.

When to go

March to May and October to November give cool walking and stable weather; November colours the forest. June rains hardest, and high summer is humid work under the canopy.

Things to know

This is real walking - daily stages of roughly 13 to 25 kilometres with relentless short climbs, and the stone paving turns slick as soap in rain. Village lodging is limited and books out months ahead in the good seasons; luggage-shuttle services solve the packing problem. Phone signal drops in the valleys - carry the paper maps the Tanabe tourism bureau provides.

Nearby

Nachi Falls, the Kumano shrines at Shingu and the Kii coast's fishing towns.

Key facts