Mount Yoshino

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About Mount Yoshino

Mount Yoshino is an 8-km ridge that rises from the Yoshino River up to Kinpu Shrine, around 850 m in elevation. Cherry trees were planted by worshippers over more than a thousand years because cherry wood was used to carve the image of Zao Gongen, the mountain’s deity. There are about 30,000 trees, mostly the wild yamazakura species, with pale flowers that appear alongside reddish young leaves.

The trees are grouped in four areas: Shimo Senbon, near the station; Naka Senbon, around Kinpusen-ji; Kami Senbon, higher up; and Oku Senbon, at the top, amid cedar forests. Because elevation varies, blooming usually progresses up the mountain from lower to higher areas over several weeks in April, and the sight of entire slopes of cherry trees is called hitome senbon, “a thousand trees at a glance.”

At Kami Senbon, the Hanayagura lookout offers the widest view of the slopes and the village. Nearby, Yoshino Mikumari Shrine, dedicated to a water deity, has a main hall rebuilt in 1604 by Toyotomi Hideyori with colorful carvings and is part of the World Heritage. In Oku Senbon, Saigyo’s hermitage—a 12th-century poet-monk who wrote about Yoshino’s cherries—is a small cabin in the forest.

The walk from the station to Oku Senbon takes several hours, always uphill, along streets and trails. Buses connect the lower areas to Kami Senbon. Outside April, the mountain is quiet, with November red leaves and the pilgrimage trails of the Omine Okugake route that continue south.