Mitake Gorge Riverside Trail was added to Your Favorites!
Chichibu-Tama-Kai NP, Tokyo
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
Look for the brown dipper: despite its name, it is not a crow. This stream bird dives into fast water and walks along the riverbed to pick aquatic insects—and can be spotted in Mitake Gorge.
Trailside Kanzanji opened in 1930 to house a wooden Buddha entrusted by the head monk of Suzhou’s Hanshan Temple to calligrapher Taguchi Beihō. Local sake-brewer Ozawa Tappei helped establish it.
At Sawanoi’s riverside restaurant, the brewery’s own brewing water is used to make tofu and yuba (tofu skin), too—a tasty second life for the same local water used to brew the sake.
Before modern roads, Okutama timber traveled to Edo on this river: logs were floated downstream, then lashed into rafts. Tama River rafting continued until the Taishō era ended, making this scenic stretch a working highway.
The sake name Sawanoi comes from Sawai, the old village where the brewery stands. Ozawa Shuzo’s records show sake-making was already underway there in 1702—more than 300 years of local brewing beside the gorge.
Mitake’s rapids had a national sporting reputation by 1966, when they hosted Japan’s canoeing championships. Since 2010, the community-run Mitake Cup has brought together competitors in several river sports.
The original Mitake Small Bridge was built in 1975 and swept away when Typhoon Hagibis sent the Tama surging through the gorge in October 2019. It had linked the trail’s banks for 44 years.
Painter Kawai Gyokudō made Mitake his home from 1944 until 1957. Locals, organizations, and admirers raised funds for a museum at his beloved gorge; it opened in 1961, just 4 years after his death.
Mitake Gorge was selected for Japan’s 100 Famous Waters in 1985. The designation recognizes this clear stretch of the Tama River, beside which an approximately 4-km riverside trail runs.
Poet Kitahara Hakushū visited the Sawanoi brewery in 1923 and wrote a verse inspired by its distinctive cedar trees. A stone monument to his poem still stands in Sawanoi Garden beside the riverside path.
A historic Ome Railway scenic postcard labels this gorge Shazankei (射山渓). Tokyo’s Mitake Visitor Center also preserves the name as an older one for the stretch now known as Mitake Gorge.
