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Joshin’etsukogen NP, Nagano
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The famous pair are only the headliners: a 1-km cliff carries about 10 year-round waterfalls, with several more appearing after heavy rain. The whole cascade is protected as the Yonako Waterfall Group.
Around the summer solstice, morning sunlight can catch the mist at Fudo Falls and create a rainbow—a detail recorded in Japan’s official description of this designated scenic site.
The 2 famous streams begin on separate peaks, Mt. Neko and Mt. Azumaya, then drop from the same caldera wall. The twin falls draw water from different parts of the mountain landscape.
At nearby Yonako Fudoji, the waterfalls themselves are revered as sacred presences: Fudo is the White Dragon, Gongen the Black Dragon, and together they are called the Twin Dragons.
Every June 15, ascetics and believers shoulder a sacred image from the village temple up to the waterfall-side Okunoin, where it stays for 3 months; on Sept. 15 they carry it back down.
Offering swords dating from the 13th–16th centuries were found near Mt. Azumaya’s summit; a 1611 account also called Gongen and Fudo the ritual cleansing water of Hakusan Gongen.
Sulfur mining at Yonako was documented by 1624. In the 1940s, more than 1,000 people worked here, with a 13-km ropeway carrying ore and supplies toward Suzaka; the mine fully closed in 1973.
Yonako River stones can stain the streambed rust-red. Researchers link the color to local geology and the old sulfur mine; a 2010 study found no fish or aquatic insects in most reaches it surveyed.
At Daikoku Bridge, a small “hionguri” fall shoots outward after hitting a rock. The word describes that bouncing motion; as the rock wears down, this quirky waterfall could change or vanish.
A laser survey changed the accepted heights: Gongen measured 82.10 m and Fudo 88.96 m. Suzaka adopted rounded figures of 82 m and 89 m—higher than the older numbers used for decades.
The 2016 NHK drama Sanada Maru showed these falls beneath a castle in its opening sequence, but that castle was digitally composited; no castle stands above Yonako’s real cliff.
