This guided hike will let you explore the hills outside of Matsumoto as you walk in the footsteps of monks and pilgrims. All tours are private, available exclusively for your group.

Highlights

• Spend time in silent contemplation at historic Tokoji Temple
• Walk the Zenkoji Kaido pilgrimage trail through picturesque rural scenery
• Visit Iwai Kannon Hall, marking the entrance to a mountain sanctuary where ascetics once came to practice
• Explore the area around Iwai Kannon Hall with its stratified sandstone hills and rock formations, Buddhist cliff carvings, and sweeping views

Where: Shiga Village, Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture

Duration: ~6 hours

Start and Finish Times: Determined according to your itinerary, in conjunction with local bus and train schedules. Generally a mid-morning start

Distance: ~7 km (4 miles)

Difficulty: Easy to moderate

Elevation Gain: 116 m (381 ft)

Season: April through early December (depending on local conditions)

Price:  ¥65,000 per tour for up to three people. Contact us for larger groups

Getting There: Matsumoto is a roughly 2.5 hr train ride from Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, 3.5 hr from Osaka and 3 hr from Kyoto (via Nagoya). It’s 2.5 to 3 hr by bus from Takayama. Shiga Village is a 20-minute drive or 30-minute bus ride from downtown Matsumoto

Overview

Nestled in the forested hills outside of Matsumoto lies Tokoji, a Shingon Buddhist temple with ties to Kukai, the monk who introduced the teachings of esoteric Buddhism to Japan in 9th century. Tokoji was a major regional center of Buddhist practice until the modern period.

The temple sits right along the Zenkoji Kaido, an 80-kilometer pilgrimage route connecting the Nakasendo trail to Zenko-ji Temple, a site renowned for its healing properties in what’s now Nagano City. As a walking route, today the Zenkoji Kaido remains largely forgotten, though there is plenty to remind those taking the time to wander it through the countryside of its storied past.

Our tour starts at Tokoji Temple. After a brief exploration of the temple and the grounds led by the head priest, we settle in for a 20-minute period of silent sitting in the atmospheric main temple hall that dates from the 1800s. The priest will offer guidance in basic mindfulness meditation for those interested. Those with their own meditation practice or past experience are free to sit in the manner and tradition of their choice. This follows the open principles of Sangha Shinshu, Tokoji’s monthly meditation gathering it’s hosted since 2014.

All tours are private, exclusively for your group. Inquire today to secure your dates.

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After meditation and tea, we’ll set out walking mindfully through the temple grounds and onto the Zenkoji Kaido. From there we follow the old road through the countryside, passing farms and shrines, stone markers, historic homes, and temples, offering a glimpse into Japan’s feudal-period history. We then reach Aida, an old post town that once served as a resting point for travelers.

From there, the Kaido begins to rise toward the hills as we pass through outlying hamlets on the way to Iwai Kannon Hall. Housing an image of the bodhisattva Kannon from the mid-1700s, this small sanctuary was once under the auspices of Tokoji Temple and marked the entrance to the mountain area where monks would settle in for extended seasons of meditation.

Until seven million years ago, the sandstone cliffs and rock formations in this area were beneath the sea, and the uplifted landscape features dramatic stratification with wave fossils and coal seams, revealing the area’s ancient seabed history. The monks that carried out their practices here left magai-butsu, or Buddhist carvings etched into the rock as testaments to their devotion.