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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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At Boranaya, villagers once lived in a thatched fishing hut during the spring and autumn mullet runs, tending boats and nets. Local residents restored it; today, the old fishery base serves seafood from nearby waters.
About 4,000 years ago, Ōmuroyama’s lava poured into Sagami Bay, pushing the shoreline outward and creating Jogasaki’s jagged coast. The cliffs mark the edge of a flow that reached roughly 4 km out to sea.
At Futo, a lookout hut watched for mullet schools, then relayed directions to boats driving the fish into coves. It was the village’s only permanent fish-watch hut; the surviving structure is now a Shizuoka-designated folk-cultural property.
The rock called Tsubakurojima is a summer nursery for Japanese swifts: they arrive from Southeast Asia in spring, raise their young, then leave around September. Ino Tadataka’s 1815 survey diary already records the island’s name.
Near Boranaya, stonework marks a coastal battery built in the final shogunate era amid fears of foreign ships. Four guns once stood here; they were later moved to Shimoda, leaving the old emplacement beside the trail.
Completed in 1968, Kadowaki Suspension Bridge is 48 m long and hangs 23 m above the sea. It was built as part of the Picnical Course, making this famous crossing a piece of the trail’s modern history.
Local folklore says the inlet beneath the bridge was named for Halfshiro, a fisherman who fell while carrying a basket of seaweed. His wife, O-Yoshi, is said to have mourned at the spot.
Near Kadowaki Lighthouse, Hime-yuzuriha forms an almost pure evergreen grove—unusual enough for Ito to designate it a natural monument in 1967. Look for leaves clustered at branch tips on conspicuously red stalks.
The trail inspired the song “Jogasaki Blues,” first conceived as a way to promote the Picnical Course. Its nearby memorial is shaped like a suspension bridge and bears the lyricist Tetsuro Hoshino’s handwritten lettering.
Names along the route preserve the working vocabulary of local fishers: the trail guide says fishermen named the capes and inlets as far back as the Edo period. Labels such as Igaigane and Shinnori still mark the coast.
