Urban Oasis: Hossawa Waterfall in Hinohara Village, Tokyo
- ファベル 株式会社
- May 27
- 3 min read
Hinohara Village, located about 90 minutes by car from central Tokyo, is a village of only 2,000 people with 90% of its area covered by mountains and forests.
The road running westward from Akiruno City, Tokyo (pop. 78,000), which is located east of Hinohara Village, is the Hinohara Kaido (Hinohara Highway). This road connects to the MizuneMotoshuku Line at a T-shaped junction near the Hinohara Village Office, about 2 km west of the border between Akiruno City and Hinohara Village. If you turn left (I.e. toward the south) at the T-shaped junction, you always are on Hinohara Highway, which runs along the south side of the village to «Hinohara Tomin no Mori» Forest. On the other hand, if you go to the right (toward the north) at the T-shaped junction, the name of the road becomes MizuneMotoshuku Line frome there. Once on this road you can only drive as far as Fujikura, which is the access point to the Former Kobayashi Family Residence, and the Amagoi Waterfall.
Hinohara Highway runs parallel to “ South Akikawa” valley and MizuneMotoshuku Line runs parallel to “ North Akikawa”. In other words, the T-shaped junction near the Hinohara Village Office is also the junction of these two streams.
Driving along this road, which has no convenience stores or even a Michi no Eki (roadside station), you may wonder if you are in Tokyo. The air is clear and the landscape is always deep and beautiful with mountains and forests on either side of the road.
There are more than 50 waterfalls, both large and small, along the main route through Hinohara Village (Hinohara Highway and MizuneMotoshuku Line). Thirteen of these waterfalls are open for sightseeing, but most of them cannot be viewed from the car window. There are also only a limited number of places where walking trails are maintained.
The Hossawa Waterfall introduced here is reached by a well-maintained promenade from the parking lot on the Mizune Motoshuku Line, and it takes about 15-minute walk while enjoying the surrounding scenery. At the entrance of the promenade, there is a fashionable cafe and a crafts museum, a wooden building that used to be a post office, which was moved to this location.
The website explains that the waterfall is a four-stage waterfall with a drop of 60 meters, but what can be seen from the arrival point of the trail is the lowest stage with a drop of about 20 meters, and visitors can enjoy watching the fresh water, which is also the water source for the residents, fall into the basin.
This is the only waterfall in Tokyo selected as one of the 100 best waterfalls in Japan. It can be called an “urban oasis” that is relatively easy to access.
Along the Hinohara Highway, turn left at the T-shaped junction of the village office and head for the Hinohara Village Tomin-no Mori forest, where you will find the tangible cultural property “Old Takahashi House” where you can have lunch at the café-restaurant inside the house.
Another building that has been designated as a cultural property is the “Former Kobayashi Family Residence” near Amagoi-no-taki Waterfall, the terminus of the MizuneMotoshuku Line, which has been designated as a National Important Cultural Property.
For those interested in wooden architectures, Hinohara Village is a very interesting place, along with its forestry industry. I would like to introduce architecture and forestry on another occasion.
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