Togakushi Jinja (Okusha)

photo by Komoro no kaze · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by Koda6029 · CC BY-SA 4.0

The last 500 metres run between 200 cedars that are 250 years old, the widest 2.27 metres across.

The pilgrim leaves the Zuishin-mon gate and walks between the cryptomerias: in the last 500 metres the trunks are more than two centuries old, some over 250 years and up to 2.27 metres in diameter. At the end of the avenue, the most remote of the five Togakushi shrines enshrines Ame-no-Tajikarao, the god who hurled away the rock of the heavenly cave: the same rock that, legend says, became Mount Togakushi behind the shrine.

The fifth and innermost of the Togakushi shrines (after Hōkōsha, Kuzuryūsha, Chūsha and Hinomikosha), it was traditionally a centre of shugendō, the ascetic syncretism of Buddhism and mountain worship, before the forced separation of Buddhism and Shinto in 1868. The forest around it, with cedars, elms, lime trees, beeches and horse chestnuts over about 50 hectares (154,000 tsubo according to the shrine's source), has been a Natural Monument of Nagano Prefecture since 1973; visitors are asked to stay on the path and not to trample the undergrowth.

ℹ️ The shrine grounds are always open and free. You walk the final avenue, which is closed to cars (about 40 minutes from the main car park by the Zuishin-mon, a few minutes less with the shuttle from Chūsha); in winter this stretch may stay covered in snow.

🚉 戸隠奥社入口 · 27 min walk

Sources: togakushi-jinja.jp · ja.wikipedia.org

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