Rough Guide gets a bit short on info the further north you are in Honshū so we were much more reliant on tourist leaflets we found along the way - often in Japanese. So the pictures for Goshado made it look like a must see place
...and indeed it is, five pavilions side by side on a mountainside is a sight to see. What we hadn't appreciated was the difficult access so we found ourselves with inappropriate footwear as we were faced with the challenge of 999 steps up a steep hillside.
The path is made of boulders of all shapes and sizes so climbing up is like balancing on vertical stepping stones. Utterly exhausting but worth it at the end of the day.
Legend has it that 5 ogres attacked the area, stealing crops and abducting young women from the villages. So the villagers made a proposal to the ogres - if they could build a 1000 step path up to the shrine in only one night then the village maidens would be offered to them. If they failed the ogres would leave the area for good. The ogres accepted the challenge and were making good progress when the villagers cheated and one of them mimicked a crowing cockerel and the ogres, having completed 999 steps fled, thinking it was morning and that they had failed the challenge.
It seemed pretty clear to us that no improvements had been made to the path since the ogres first built it.
If you go, wear something more substantial than flip flops or Crocs and take a drink and a seat towel.
Rough Guide gets a bit short on info the further north you are in Honshū so we were much more reliant on tourist leaflets we found along the way - often in Japanese. So the pictures for Goshado made it look like a must see place
...and indeed it is, five pavilions side by side on a mountainside is a sight to see. What we hadn't appreciated was the difficult access so we found ourselves with inappropriate footwear as we were faced with the challenge of 999 steps up a steep hillside.
The path is made of boulders of all shapes and sizes so climbing up is like balancing on vertical stepping stones. Utterly exhausting but worth it at the end of the day.
Legend has it that 5 ogres attacked the area, stealing crops and abducting young women from the villages. So the villagers made a proposal to the ogres - if they could build a 1000 step path up to the shrine in only one night then the village maidens would be offered to them. If they failed the ogres would leave the area for good. The ogres accepted the challenge and were making good progress when the villagers cheated and one of them mimicked a crowing cockerel and the ogres, having completed 999 steps fled, thinking it was morning and that they had failed the challenge.
It seemed pretty clear to us that no improvements had been made to the path since the ogres first built it.
If you go, wear something more substantial than flip flops or Crocs and take a drink and a seat towel.
RSS Feed
