Yamagata · Mt. HaguroNo.559★★★Open in map →
Haguro-san Five-Story Pagoda
A five-tier wooden pagoda in a stand of old cedars at the foot of Mount Haguro, one of the three sacred peaks of Dewa. The timber is bare, there is no ticket gate, and the tower marks the start of the pilgrim stairway.
- FromTsuruoka Station
- ~40 minBus, ~40 min
- Get off atHaguro Zuishinmon (Shonai Kotsu bus)
- On foot
- Haguro-san Five-Story Pagoda
Where it is
9 more notes in Yamagata · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Zuishinmon gatethe vermilion gate where the Dewa Sanzan precinct begins, and where the bus sets you down
- Harai-gawa and the red bridgea stream at the foot of the Mamako slope, where pilgrims once washed before the climb
- Suga-no-takia fall off the cliff facing the bridge, fed by water channelled from the Gassan foothills
- Jiji-sugia cedar of roughly a thousand years beside the path, a designated natural monument
- The stone stairway2,446 steps to the summit between cedars listed as a special natural monument
How to actually get there
- Tsuruoka Station → Haguro Zuishinmon (Shonai Kotsu bus toward the summit, about 40 minutes).
- Pass through the Zuishinmon gate and go down to the bridge over the Harai-gawa.
- Climb the first flight of steps; the pagoda stands on the left among the cedars.
- Carry on up the stairway to the summit shrine, or walk back to the road and ride the rest.
- Bus from Tsuruoka Station toward the summit
- From the stand outside Tsuruoka Station take the Shonai Kotsu bus bound for Hagurosan-cho, the summit, and get off at Haguro Zuishinmon. The ride takes about 40 minutes. The same route carries on to the top and, in season, as far as the eighth station of Mount Gassan. This is a scheduled local service rather than a tourist shuttle, so read the timetable at the stand before you plan the day.
- Back down to Tsuruoka
- The same route runs in reverse, and you can board either at the gate or at the summit if you have climbed the steps. Departures are not thick on the ground. Check the last run when you arrive, because there is no other way down off the mountain once it has gone.
About the place
The pagoda stands in Tsuruoka, Yamagata, in a hollow just inside the Zuishinmon gate that marks the edge of the Dewa Sanzan precinct. It is a three-bay, five-tier tower, roofed in thin overlapping wooden shingles rather than tile, and no paint or lacquer has been put on the timber. Its height is about 29 metres. Temple buildings once filled the ground around it; they are gone, and the tower is what remains. Old cedars close in on every side, so there is no open place from which to see the whole of it at once.
How to enjoy it
From the Zuishinmon stop the tower is about ten minutes on foot — down the slope, over the bridge, up again — and that short stretch is the only walking the route forces on you. Because the bus goes on to the summit, you can see the pagoda first and ride the rest, or climb the stairway and meet the bus at the top. In winter the approach fills with snow, and even where it is cleared the footing is slippery.
Background & history
Tradition credits the first pagoda on this ground to the warrior Taira no Masakado, though no record confirms it. The tower standing there now was rebuilt about six centuries ago, in the Muromachi period, by a Shonai lord who then held the office of chief abbot of Haguro. When the Meiji government separated Buddhism from Shinto, the mountain was reorganised as a shrine and most of the halls around the tower were lost; the pagoda itself came through. It was designated a National Treasure in 1966.
Before you go
- Cash
- The shrine's own pages list no admission for the stairway approach or for the outside of the pagoda. The Dewa Sanzan History Museum, up at the summit, is a separate ticketed building. Buses take cash and the operator's regional IC card, and a one-day pass covering the whole Tsuruoka area is sold at the bus terminal.
- Before you go
- Winter is the real constraint. Snow banks up on the stone steps, and cleared or not they turn slick once the surface freezes. The Haguro-san toll road to the summit carries an official notice that there are periods and hours when it cannot be driven. There is no lighting on the approach after dark, apart from the pagoda light-up evenings held in some seasons.
- Another way
- Shonai Airport has a connecting bus into Tsuruoka, where you change to the mountain route. By car the approach is from the Shonai-Asahi interchange on the Yamagata Expressway, roughly 30 minutes to the gate, with parking for coaches and cars at Zuishinmon.
- After you get off
- The Haguro Zuishinmon stop sits on the road just outside the gate. Walk through it, down the Mamako slope to the red bridge over the Harai-gawa, then up the first flight of steps. The tower appears on the left, about ten minutes from the road.