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Myōkō-Togakushi Renzan NP, Nagano
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On Risshun and Rittō—the traditional starts of spring and winter—the sunrise aligns with the avenue’s southeast axis, appearing directly above Zuishinmon Gate. It’s a fleeting seasonal alignment along this sacred route.
After conflict drove Togakushi’s monks away, cedar planting began with Uesugi Kagekatsu’s rebuilding in 1594; a major approach repair in 1643 brought another phase. The avenue grew over time, not in one grand planting.
DNA research found many avenue cedars are genetic clones, suggesting they may have been propagated by cuttings. Their genetic diversity is comparable to natural cedar stands, yet their overall genetic profile is distinctive.
A survey found more than 600 trees in the Okusha grove with trunks at least 1m in diameter. More than half were cedars—but the largest was a beech, measuring 227cm across at chest height.
The cedar corridor was once lined with Buddhist temple lodges. Excavations uncovered their foundations and stone retaining walls, plus a possible pond and 18th-century Hizen-style blue-and-white tableware.
At the avenue’s threshold, Zuishinmon Gate tells of a religious change: until 1868 it was a Buddhist Niō gate. After Buddhism and Shinto were separated, its statues were replaced with Shinto guardian figures.
This sacred grove also supplied local building timber. In 1816, after cedar was reported exhausted across Togakushi, the head priest ordered 300 seedlings planted among the mountain’s 3 temple precincts.
Since 2010, local residents have surveyed a 5-hectare belt around the avenue every 5 years, mapping trees at least 5cm in diameter and recording species, location, trunk size and health—a painstaking community census.
Typhoon 21 snapped 3 giant cedars in the avenue in October 2017. It was the first time several cedars had been storm-damaged together since 1959, when the Isewan Typhoon uprooted 7.
The 50.9-hectare Okusha grove around the avenue is a mixed forest, not just planted cedars. Tokugawa-era rules strictly banned felling precinct trees, and Nagano designated the grove a Prefectural Natural Monument in 1973.
