Dewa Sanzan Pilgrimage: The Three Mountains of Rebirth — 2 Days

The pilgrimage up Mount Haguro begins at the vermilion Zuishinmon gate, the threshold between the everyday world and the sacred mountain. Step through it and the path drops down a flight of stone steps into the Tsugizakura cedar avenue — a procession of more than four hundred Japanese cedars, many over five hundred years old and the tallest near a thousand, their trunks rising like columns in a green-lit nave. At the bottom a small red bridge crosses a stream by the Suga waterfall and the little Hanihiyama shrine. It is one of the most beautiful approaches to any shrine in Japan, cool and hushed and dim even at midday, and it sets the tone for everything above. The avenue is a designated National Special Natural Monument.

Free and open. The gate and cedar avenue are at the base of the Haguro stone-step path, reached by bus from Tsuruoka (about 35-40 minutes) to the Haguro-zuishinmon stop. The descent into the avenue is itself a set of steps. Allow about 30 minutes here before the pagoda.

A few minutes down the cedar avenue stands the five-storey pagoda, a slim, unpainted wooden tower roughly 29 metres tall, weathered to silver-grey, set among the giant cedars with no other building in sight. Rebuilt around 1400 and a National Treasure, it is the oldest pagoda in the Tohoku region and, with its forest setting, perhaps the most photographed single sight on the Dewa Sanzan. Long covered by restoration scaffolding, it stands fully unobscured again as of 2025. From here the real climb begins: 2,446 stone steps in three long stages up through the cedars to the summit, carved with hidden symbols said to bring luck if you find them. Take it slowly; a teahouse partway offers a rest and a certificate for those who walk the whole way.

Free and open year-round (the steps are best April-November; icy and demanding in winter). The pagoda is a few minutes into the cedar avenue from the Zuishinmon gate. The full climb to the summit is about 2,446 steps and takes most people 50-70 minutes; sturdy shoes essential. Allow about 90 minutes including the pagoda and the ascent.

At the top of the steps the forest opens onto the summit shrine: the Sanjin Gosaiden, an immense hall with a thatched roof more than two metres thick and walls of deep vermilion lacquer, one of the largest thatched structures in Japan. Uniquely, it enshrines the deities of all three mountains together, so that pilgrims who cannot make the hard summer-only climbs of Gassan and Yudono can still worship the whole Dewa Sanzan in one place — which is why Haguro is walked year-round. A mirror pond, a bell, the historical museum and the priests' offices surround it. Stand in the gravel court, watch the white-clad pilgrims and the yamabushi in their checked robes, and take in the scale of the roof before walking on to your lodge.

Free to enter the grounds; prayers and the museum have hours roughly 08:40-16:00 (approx., 2026). At the top of the Haguro stone steps; a road and bus also reach the summit if you prefer not to climb. Allow about 45 minutes.

Just below the summit hall, the Saikan is the surviving worship hall of a former temple, now the pilgrims' refectory and lodge, and the place to eat the food of the mountain: shojin-ryori, the strict vegetarian cuisine of the yamabushi, built entirely from what the Dewa Sanzan provide. A typical tray runs to mountain vegetables and wild greens, several preparations of the local bamboo shoots and mushrooms, sesame tofu, and the prized 'tochi' horse-chestnut mochi, all seasoned with restraint and arranged with quiet care. Eaten in a tatami hall looking out over the cedars, it is a meal as much about discipline and place as flavour, and the ideal lunch between the climb and the descent. Reserve ahead, as meals are prepared to order.

Shojin meals run roughly ¥2,200-7,700 depending on the course (approx., 2026); reserve ahead by phone (Japanese). Just below the Sanjin Gosaiden at the Haguro summit. The Saikan also offers lodging. Allow about an hour.

At the foot of Mount Haguro, the village of Toge is a street of 'shukubo', the pilgrims' lodges that have housed Dewa Sanzan worshippers for centuries, each run by a family of yamabushi priests. Daishinbo is one of the welcoming ones for visitors: a large traditional lodge where you sleep on futons in tatami rooms, bathe, and are served a shojin dinner and breakfast of the same mountain vegetarian cuisine, often with a short explanation of the faith and, by arrangement, the chance to meet a practising yamabushi. Staying here rather than in a hotel is the point of the trip — to pass the night inside the living pilgrimage rather than beside it, in the quiet temple village under the mountain. Book ahead, especially in the summer climbing season.

A night with shojin dinner and breakfast runs roughly ¥10,000-13,000 per person (approx., 2026); reserve ahead via the lodge. In Toge village at the base of Mount Haguro, reached by bus from Tsuruoka. Check in, bathe, and take dinner in the tatami hall. Allow the evening.

Yudono is the holiest and most secret of the three mountains, the place of rebirth, and the climax of the pilgrimage. There is no building to photograph and traditionally nothing may be said about what is here: an old pilgrim saying runs 'do not speak of Yudono, do not ask'. After purification you remove your shoes and socks and walk barefoot over a large rust-red rock from which hot spring water flows continuously, warm underfoot, an object of worship in itself rather than a shrine in the usual sense. It is a startling, intensely physical act of faith that even visitors find moving. Photography is strictly forbidden beyond the gate. Reach it from the trailhead by a short shuttle bus or a walk up the valley.

Open only roughly June 1 to early November (snowbound the rest of the year — confirm the 2026 dates); around ¥500 for the purification and entry (approx., 2026). No photography beyond the gate; bare feet required on the rock. A shuttle bus runs from the trailhead parking. Allow about 90 minutes including the shuttle.

At the trailhead below the shrine, the Sanrosho is the pilgrims' lodge-and-hall where worshippers have rested and eaten before and after the climb to Yudono. It serves the same shojin-ryori as Haguro — vegetarian trays of mountain vegetables, sesame tofu, local mushrooms and pickles — in a plain tatami dining room, and is the natural place for lunch between the morning shrine and the afternoon temples. There is a small shop and rest area too. It is unfussy, regional and tied entirely to the pilgrimage, the right midday pause on a day given over to mountain faith. Confirm opening, as it follows the shrine's roughly June-to-November season.

Shojin meal sets run roughly ¥2,750-3,850 (approx., 2026); open in the shrine season, roughly June to early November — confirm. At the Yudonosan trailhead, by the parking and shuttle stop. Allow about an hour.

Down in the foothills, the temple of Ryusui-ji Dainichibo keeps one of Japan's 'sokushinbutsu' — a monk who mummified his own body through a fierce ascetic practice. To become a living buddha, Shinnyokai-shonin spent years eating only nuts, bark and seeds to strip his body of fat and moisture, drank a lacquer-tree tea to preserve the tissue, and finally was sealed underground to die in meditation, his body exhumed years later and enshrined. He sits today, robed and lacquered, before worshippers in the temple hall, having achieved his vow in 1783 at the age of 96. A priest tells the story and explains the practice, which was tied to the Yudono faith. It is sobering and unforgettable, a side of Japanese religion few foreign travellers ever encounter.

Open daily roughly 08:00-17:00; around ¥500 adult (approx., 2026), with a priest's explanation in Japanese. In the Oami area of Tsuruoka, in the Yudono foothills. Photography of the sokushinbutsu is generally not permitted. Allow about 45 minutes.

A short distance from Dainichibo, the temple of Churenji enshrines a second self-mummified monk, Tetsumonkai-shonin, who completed the same extraordinary practice and is said to have given one of his own eyes to cure an epidemic before he began his final fast. The thatched hall has a famous painted ceiling by contemporary artists and a quieter, more contemplative atmosphere than its neighbour. Churenji also has a literary fame: it is the setting of a celebrated modern novel about the mummified monks. Visiting the two temples together, so close in the same foothills, makes plain that this was not a single curiosity but a serious regional tradition of mountain asceticism tied to the Yudono faith. A profound place to end the pilgrimage before the drive back to Tsuruoka.

Open daily roughly 09:00-16:30; around ¥500 adult (approx., 2026). About a 30-minute walk or short drive from Dainichibo in the Oami foothills of Tsuruoka. Allow about 45 minutes.