Hotokegaura
licensed photographTomokazu Kitjaima / CC BY-SA 3.0

Aomori · Shimokita PeninsulaNo.804★★Open in map →

Hotokegaura

— Shimokita's rock coast, reached from the water

natureOff the trail — and worth it

A stretch of pale, wind-cut rock standing along the west coast of Aomori's Shimokita Peninsula. No road reaches the shore itself — you arrive by boat from Sai, or on foot down a steep path from the highway above.

  1. FromShimokita Station
  2. ~3 hrBus + sightseeing boat
  3. Get off atArusasu, Sai (Shimokita Kotsu Sai Line / boat pier)
  4. From there
  5. Hotokegaura
Directions ↗

The sweet spot

This is a nationally designated site and the summer boats fill up, so it is not unknown. What keeps the numbers down is the approach. No road reaches the shore: you either take the boat from Sai, which runs a season, or walk down a steep path and climb it again. Neither allows a casual stop on the way to somewhere else.

Where it is

34 more notes in Aomori · open the map →

What to look for

Gokurakuhama利用者:金沢 / CC BY-SA 3.0
  1. The landing pierthe berth where the sightseeing boat ties up, and where the shore walk begins
  2. Gokurakuhamathe gravel beach at the middle of the coast, named for the Pure Land
  3. Nyorai no Kubia rock read as the head of a nyorai, one of the named figures in the group
  4. Gohyaku Rakana cluster of slender columns read as a crowd of rakan disciples
  5. The shore path from Route 338the only way in without a boat, dropping in steps from the car park above

How to actually get there

  1. Shimokita Station → Arusasu, Sai (Shimokita Kotsu Sai-line through bus).
  2. Arusasu → check in at the boat counter, then board at the pier in front of the building.
  3. Sai → Hotokegaura (Hotokegaura Kaijo Kanko sightseeing boat, scheduled sailings from spring to the end of October).
  4. Hotokegaura → back to Sai on the same boat; overland, the alternative is the stepped path up to Route 338.
Sai Line bus from Shimokita Station, then the boat
Shimokita Station on the JR Ohminato Line is the gateway. Shimokita Kotsu runs a through bus on its Sai line as far as Arusasu, the culture hall and terminal building at Sai, and the boat company puts that ride at about two hours twenty minutes. The pier is directly in front of Arusasu and check-in closes shortly before departure, so leave slack between the bus and the sailing.
Return from Hotokegaura on the same boat
The boat that brings you takes you back; nothing else scheduled leaves the shore. From Arusasu the Sai-line bus returns to Shimokita Station, and departures are few, so match the sailing to a bus before you book. If you drove, the car park at Arusasu is free and is where the day starts and ends.
Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

The west coast of the Shimokita Peninsula loses its colour here. For about two kilometres the shoreline stands as eroded rock, white-green and soft-edged, rising in columns and spires above a narrow gravel beach. The stone is tuff, ash thrown out by undersea volcanoes and set hard, and it crumbles easily enough that plants cannot take hold. Bare and unbroken by green, worked on by wind and water, the outlines start to look like figures. People read them as buddhas and gave each one a name.

How to enjoy it

The scheduled boats leave Sai in the late morning and again in the early afternoon. The crossing takes about thirty minutes and you get about thirty minutes ashore before the return run — enough to walk the beach, not enough to settle. Extra sailings are added at busy times but booked passengers come first, so reserve rather than turn up. Rough weather cancels the run, or turns it into a cruise past the rocks with no landing.

Background & history

The rock was made long before anyone named it. Ash from undersea volcanoes hardened into tuff, the sea cut it back, and what was left stood up in forms that people read as buddhas. That reading gave the coast its name and gave the individual rocks theirs, down to the beach in the middle, which is called the shore of the Pure Land. The state protects the stretch as a place of scenic beauty and a natural monument. Local telling also attaches some of the rocks to Minamoto no Yoshitsune on his flight north.

Before you go

Cash
The shore itself costs nothing. The boat is a paid return ticket — three thousand yen for adults at the time of writing, half that for primary-school children, and free for children below school age. Reservations are taken online or by telephone, and same-day booking is by telephone only.
Good to know
The scheduled boat runs a season and finishes at the end of October, and it does not sail in bad weather. The shore path is closed when there is snow, and the tourism association warns that it runs through country where wild animals are about. Nothing is sold on the shore, so carry water and take your rubbish out with you.
Another way
By road, Route 338 runs along the top of the coast, and a car park with a lookout sits at the head of the path; from there it is twenty to thirty minutes down to the shore and the same climb back. The boat company reckons the drive from Shimokita Station to Sai at about an hour and twenty minutes, north on Route 279 to Oma and then west.
After you get off
At Arusasu, check in at the boat counter inside the building and walk out to the pier in front of it. At Hotokegaura you step off onto the landing, the gravel beach starts straight ahead, and the rocks run away to left and right along the shore.

Nearby notes

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Distances are straight lines on the map, not travel times.