The Iya Valley: Vine Bridges, the Oboke Gorge & Mt Tsurugi — 2 Days

The approach to Iya runs up the Yoshino River through the Oboke and Koboke gorges, a stretch where the river has carved deep through layers of crystalline schist polished smooth and tilted into strange pale slabs. From the riverside base at Mannaka, a flat-bottomed sightseeing boat makes a thirty-minute run up and back through the heart of the Oboke gorge, gliding under towering rock walls streaked grey, green and white, with the clear emerald water sliding past and herons on the boulders. A guide points out the rock formations the river has sculpted, and in the right light the gorge is genuinely beautiful. The base building above has a restaurant where you can try deko-mawashi, the local skewers of tofu, konjac and river fish grilled over charcoal. A gentle, scenic start before the bridges higher up.

Boat about ¥1,500 (approx., 2026); roughly 9:00-17:00, year-round, weather permitting. At Mannaka on Route 32, about 40 minutes from JR Awa-Ikeda. Allow about 60 minutes with the boat.

Where the old Iya valley road clings to the cliffs of the Iya gorge, on a jutting rock above a 200-metre drop to the river, stands the Shoben Kozo — a small bronze statue of a boy caught mid-pee over the abyss. It marks a spot, the locals say, where valley children and passing travellers once tested their nerve by relieving themselves off the precipice, and the little figure has become the emblem of the wild Iya road. The viewpoint is one of the best places to take in the sheer scale of the gorge, the river a thin green thread far below and the forested walls rising on every side. It is a quick, free, slightly absurd stop with a genuinely spectacular outlook, and a good place to feel just how remote this valley is.

Free, always accessible (a roadside cliff viewpoint, take care). On the Iya gorge road, about 25 minutes up from Oboke. Allow about 20 minutes.

The Iya no Kazurabashi is the great sight of the valley and one of only three vine bridges left in Japan — a 45-metre span woven from the living stems of mountain actinidia vine, hung across a clear, fast river fourteen metres below. Crossing it is a real experience: the lattice of vines and slats sways and creaks underfoot, the gaps between the planks are wide enough to see the green water rushing through, and you go slowly, gripping the vine handrails. Legend ties the bridges to the Heike who fled here after their defeat in the twelfth century, building crossings they could cut down if pursued; in fact the present bridge is rebuilt every three years from fresh vine in the old manner. Just upstream, the slender Biwa Falls drops beside the path, where the Heike are said to have soothed their exile with music. A short, unforgettable crossing in a beautiful gorge.

Bridge about ¥550 (approx., 2026); roughly 8:00-17:00 (lit until ~21:00 in summer), one-way crossing. Biwa Falls beside it, open April-November. About 25 minutes from the Peeing Boy. Allow about 45 minutes.

Perched on the cliff high above the Iya gorge, the Hotel Iya Onsen is the most characterful place to stay in the valley and the source of one of Shikoku's great bathing experiences. From the hotel a private cable car runs down the sheer face of the gorge — a descent of about 170 metres on a 42-degree slope, five minutes through the forest — to an open-air hot-spring bath set right at the river's edge, where you soak in clear, faintly sulphurous water with the green river rushing past your feet and the wooded cliffs rising on every side. The inn itself is a quiet, traditional hot-spring hotel, freshly renovated, with rooms looking out over the gorge and meals built around mountain vegetables, river fish and Awa beef. It is the natural base for the valley and a destination in its own right; the cable-car bath alone is worth the journey into Iya.

Half-board roughly ¥25,000-40,000+ per person (approx., 2026; reopened after renovation March 2026, confirm current rates); day-use cable-car bath about ¥2,000. On the gorge road, about 20 minutes above the vine bridge. The day's final stop and overnight.

Far up the valley in eastern Iya, well beyond the famous bridge and the day-trip crowds, hang the Oku-Iya double vine bridges — two vine spans crossing the same clear mountain stream within sight of each other, traditionally called the 'husband bridge' and the longer, narrower 'wife bridge'. Woven and rebuilt from mountain vine like their famous cousin but set in much wilder, quieter surroundings of beech forest and tumbling water, they give the vine-bridge experience without the bus tours. Beside them is a 'yaen', a hand-pulled wooden cart slung on ropes that once ferried people across the river. The deep-forest setting and the near-solitude make this the more atmospheric of Iya's bridges, a reward for driving the long mountain road. Open for the warm season only.

About ¥550 (approx., 2026); open roughly April-November, closed in winter; the yaen rope cart is currently out of service. Deep in eastern Iya, about 60 minutes up from the hotel. Allow about 50 minutes.

Mt Tsurugi, at 1,955 metres, is the second-highest mountain in western Japan and a sacred peak, and from the trailhead pass of Minokoshi a seasonal chairlift carries you a long, slow, beautiful ride up through the forest to Nishijima station near the top of the mountain. From there a broad, well-made path leads in thirty to forty minutes through alpine bamboo grass to the rounded, grassy summit, where the view on a clear day takes in range after range of the Shikoku mountains and, far off, the Inland Sea. Even without walking to the very top, the chairlift ride and the high mountain air are a fine experience, and the small shrine and mountain hut at Nishijima make a turnaround point. It is the high point of the route in every sense, and the lift saves a long climb.

Chairlift round trip about ¥2,300 (approx., 2026), cash only; runs roughly mid-April to late November. From the Minokoshi pass, about 20 minutes from the double bridges. Allow about 2 hours including the lift and a short walk.

On the road back down the valley lies Nagoro, one of the strangest and most quietly affecting places in Japan. As the village emptied of people, a local woman, Tsukimi Ayano, began making life-size scarecrow dolls of the neighbours and family who had died or moved away, and over the years they have multiplied until they far outnumber the handful of living residents. They sit at bus stops, lean on tools in the fields, gather at the closed school, wait at windows — a whole depopulated mountain hamlet repeopled with stuffed figures, melancholy and oddly tender. The doll-maker still adds to them, and visitors can wander the lanes among the silent crowd. It is a haunting meditation on rural depopulation, the human cost of which is written across the Iya Valley, and unlike anywhere else on the route.

Free, always accessible (a living hamlet, visit respectfully). On Route 439, about 30 minutes down from Minokoshi. Allow about 30 minutes.

Lower down the valley, the hamlet of Ochiai is one of the most dramatic settlements in Japan — an Important Preservation District of old farmhouses and stone-walled fields stacked up an impossibly steep mountainside, rising nearly 400 metres from the river at the bottom to the highest house at the top. From the observation deck across the valley the whole village is laid out at once, a vertical patchwork of thatched and tiled roofs, terraced plots and retaining walls that have held the slope for centuries, especially beautiful in the low light of late afternoon. Some of the old houses have been restored as guest lodgings, but from the deck it is the sheer verticality and the human persistence of the place that strike you — generations farming a slope most countries would call a cliff. A fitting last image of the wild, hand-built Iya Valley before the drive out.

Free, always open (a roadside observation deck across from the village). On the Iya valley road, about 30 minutes below Nagoro. Allow about 30 minutes.