Kimpu Shrine

The Okusenbon bus ends in the forest at Okusenbon-guchi, and the last few minutes to Kimpu Shrine are a steep climb on foot. After the shops and crowds lower down on Mount Yoshino it feels like a different place: tall cedars, a plain wooden hall, often nobody else.

The shrine is the guardian of Kimpu, the mountains south of Yoshino whose name means 'gold peak', and its god is Kanayamahiko, a god of metal-bearing mountains. Nobody knows when it was founded. It was already listed among the major shrines of the Engishiki in the tenth century, and the Eiga Monogatari records a visit by Fujiwara no Michinaga. From the medieval period it was a training ground for the yamabushi of Shugendo, and its grounds are counted as part of the Omine Okugake trail, the ascetics' route that runs south along the ridges towards Kumano. That is how it comes to be one of the Yoshino and Omine sites in the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed as World Heritage in 2004.

A path drops a little way below the hall to the Yoshitsune Kakure-to. The story goes that Minamoto no Yoshitsune, hunted by his brother Yoritomo, hid in this tower, and when he was surrounded kicked out through the roof and escaped, which is why it is also called Kenuke no To, the kick-through tower. The present building is a small square tower with a bark roof, rebuilt in the early Taisho period, so you are looking at the place of the story rather than the building he hid in. It is usually seen from outside.

Do not expect much more than that. The hall is small, and there is no shop, no car park and nothing in English. What makes it worth the trip is the setting and the walk down. Saigyo-an, the site of the poet Saigyo's hut, is a detour further into the woods. The main path runs down past the Kakure-to and Yoshino Mikumari Shrine to the main street, which turns the bus ride up into a long downhill afternoon. Check the bus days first, because outside the busy seasons it runs only at weekends.