Trekking in Kohechi

The Nakahechi is the gentle Kumano route, the one the retired emperors walked. The Kohechi is the one the monks took. It runs straight south from Koyasan — the mountaintop monastery town that is still the centre of Shingon Buddhism — over three passes above a thousand metres, the highest around Obako-tōge, and down into the river valleys of the deep Kii Peninsula.

It is the steepest and most remote of the pilgrim trails: four days that add up to well over three thousand metres of climbing, with long gaps between villages and, most days, almost nobody else on the path. Cedar forest, moss, stone steps worn by six centuries of feet, and the occasional roadside Jizō statue are the whole of the scenery.

You finish at Kumano Hongū Taisha, the grand shrine, and most walkers end each day soaking in one of the hot-spring villages — Yunomine, Totsukawa — that the trail was deliberately routed through.

Lodging is sparse and must be booked ahead; some sections have no bail-out point once started.