Category: Dewa Sanzan, Japan

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Hiking the Dewa Sanzan in Honshu, Japan

Japan is a hiker’s paradise, and the Dewa Sanzan (the three mountains of Dewa) is a  pilgrimage route of the aesthetic Shugendo religion. Shugendo pilgrims and Japanese hikers can walk all three mountains – Haguro San, Gas San and Yudono San – although many non-religious hikers choose to walk just one or two of the mountains. Each mountain has a Shugendo shrine perched on the top.

The first mountain of the pilgrimage, Haguro San, is an easy walk, involving hundreds of beautiful stone steps.

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Walking the hundreds of steps between Japanese cedar trees up Haguro San
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Shrines at the bottom of Haguro San. These shrines weirdly worship the deities of mining, nation-building, fisheries, and national prosperity, to name a few. To me and Chris, this is contradictory to the little we have learned about Shugendo

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