Jomon Sugi
estimated 2,600+ years (official Ministry of Environment figure; disputed, see notes)Japanese Cedar
Published ages for this cedar run from about 1,300 years to 7,200, and not one of them is a measurement. Yakusugi rot from the inside out, so this trunk is hollow where its oldest wood should be, and no core sample has ever reached the pith. Every figure ever printed about its age is an extrapolation from the outer rings inward. The Ministry of the Environment's official line is over 2,600 years. The 7,200 came out of early coring attempts and is largely discarded now. The honest answer is that nobody knows, and that is the most interesting thing about it. What can be measured is the body: 16.4 metres around at chest height, 25.3 metres tall, the largest yakusugi known. It was only found in 1966, by a postal worker, and named for the Jomon period on the strength of an age nobody could confirm. It sits in the World Heritage core zone on Yakushima and forms part of a Special Natural Monument. Two things to know before you go. You cannot get near it. Visitors stand on a wooden deck about ten metres off and see it from three sides, because feet on the root plate were doing real damage. And this is a full mountain day, not a walk. The round trip from the Arakawa trailhead runs nine to ten hours, most of it along an old logging tramway. March to November the road is shut to cars and the pre-dawn shuttle must be booked ahead.
The button above opens directions in your maps app. No public transport reaches the trailhead directly; the Arakawa Tozan shuttle bus (pre-booked ticket, purchased in advance at Miyanoura or Anbo tourist information counters) runs between the Yakusugi Museum and the Arakawa trailhead during the March-November restricted season. From the trailhead it is roughly 9-10 hours round trip on foot to the viewing deck.
- Species
- Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria japonica)
- Age estimate
- estimated 2,600+ years (official Ministry of Environment figure; disputed, see notes)
- Location
- Viewing deck, Yakushima Wilderness area (Yaku-shima National Park), Arakawa trail, Yakushima-cho, Kumage-gun, Kagoshima (Yakushima wilderness / Arakawa trail)
- Access
- Free to view (no entry ticket to the forest itself), but a voluntary mountain-area conservation cooperation fee is strongly requested on this route: 1,000 yen for a day visit, 2,000 yen if overnighting in the mountains, for middle-school age and up. The tree itself is fenced off for protection: visitors view it from a wooden deck roughly 10m from the trunk, mainly from three sides, and may not approach the base or roots (root-plate trampling damage is the reason). This is a serious mountain hike, not a park walk: round trip from the Arakawa trailhead is roughly 9-10 hours, largely along an old logging-tramway bed (torokko-michi, about 8km) followed by a mountain trail. From 1 March to 30 November, the access road to the Arakawa trailhead is closed to private cars; visitors must buy a seat in advance on the Arakawa Tozan shuttle bus, which runs from the Yakusugi Museum bus stop. From 1 December to end of February, private cars may drive to the trailhead directly. Sturdy hiking gear, an early start (buses run pre-dawn) and a full day are required; this is explicitly the kind of trip that must be described honestly as a serious hike, never as a stroll.
- Getting there
- No public transport reaches the trailhead directly; the Arakawa Tozan shuttle bus (pre-booked ticket, purchased in advance at Miyanoura or Anbo tourist information counters) runs between the Yakusugi Museum and the Arakawa trailhead during the March-November restricted season. From the trailhead it is roughly 9-10 hours round trip on foot to the viewing deck.
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