The Japanese have a single word to describe going into nature to look for the changing leaves before the dark snap of winter: momijigari.
“Momiji” translates to red maple but extends to any bright autumn leaves. “Gari” means hunting, metaphorically. But if you’re consulting forecasts and local predictions to pin down the peak days in autumn to go, it does resemble hunting.
There are more than 1,000 varieties of Japanese maple alone, producing fiery reds, oranges, browns and purples. Many of their leaves are more petite than U.S. varieties, the size of a baby’s hands. The maples have red-tinged tips or are zinging yellow and look like they’ve been dabbed in orange paint.
Many tourists head to Kyoto to see its brilliant autumnal displays. But an alternative to taking the standard three-hour Tokaido Shinkansen, or bullet train, from Tokyo to Kyoto is to take a three-day scenic detour through the mountains, where you can escape the pace of the cities and see the well-preserved history and spiritual undercurrents of Japan.
Along the way, you can hike among the autumn leaves and waterfalls, discover local specialties such as Nagano soba noodles, visit 300-year-old sake breweries and have a chance to cross paths with wild Japanese macaques, or snow monkeys, as they are often called. The centerpiece is an unmissable stay in a traditional hot spring inn, or onsen ryokan, which includes a customary multicourse kaiseki dinner, an almost equally elaborate breakfast and the loan of Japanese lounge clothing.
Day 1: Soba and a Historical Castle
Your first day is a transition from the modern tech of Tokyo to the slower pace of a mountain city, as you gear up for two days of hiking. Book an early bullet train from Tokyo to the city of Nagano and change to a fast local train for Matsumoto (2.5 hours total), a castle city in the Northern Japanese Alps.
Leave your bag at the station (or forward to your hotel) and walk to Matsumoto City Museum of Art (700 yen, or about $4.73), splashed with exterior and interior exhibitions of Matsumoto native Yayoi Kusama’s polka dots and bright twisted tulips.
Walk to Matsumoto Castle (¥700), one of the oldest surviving Japanese castles, built in 1594 and nicknamed “Crow Castle” for its imposing five-floor stacked black exterior accentuated with peaked gables. If you time your visit right, from the tower you can see the maples across the grounds at dusk against the layered mountains.
For dinner, try traditional Nagano buckwheat soba noodles with their distinct taste influenced by the pure mountain water and volcanic ash-rich soil, traditionally served on a bamboo basket plate with dipping sauce. You can take a class to learn to make soba yourself at Takagi (¥7,200 to make two batches of soba, dinner is available to purchase as well), which has been making the noodles for 135 years. Or go to one of the authentic soba restaurants nearby, such as Kobayashi Soba (¥3,000 for dinner).
The Onsen Hotel OMOTO (starting at ¥22,000 for a double room, including breakfast) is a taxi ride up the ridge overlooking the city of Matsumoto in a geothermal area called Asama Onsen. Stay here if you want to take in views of the mountains that surround the city while soaking in the hotel’s top-floor public baths. It is a mixture of a modern Japanese hotel with western features and a traditional ryokan that could use updating. There are both western bed and Japanese futon options with shoji screens and a bento box breakfast delivered to your room.
Day 2: Hiking Trails and Thermal Waters
The town of Kamikochi, with a handful of onsen hotels, cafes and a visitors’ center, is the gateway to Chubu-Sangaku National Park, and it’s a 90-minute bus and train ride from Matsumoto. The train curls through the mountains alongside the Azusa River, with views of the spectacular colors in the park.
Kamikochi is a popular walking spot for the Japanese to take in the autumn leaves, with several trailheads for more adventurous hikes. Yellow larch dominates here, in high contrast to the clear blue mountain water. Stop by the Greenpot tearoom at the Nishi-ito-ya Mountain Lodge to buy some homemade buckwheat oyaki dumplings with roasted leek filling (¥100) and apple pie (¥500) as a hiking snack.
At the center of Kamikochi is the Kappa-bashi bridge. From this point, there are two options for short walks: one, toward Taisho Pond, is mostly paved, and the other, toward Myojin Pond, is more rustic and surrounded by a small shrine and cafes. For the more adventurous there is a three-hour hike up to the summit of Mount Okuhotaka, one of the major peaks in the park. Near the top is the Dakesawa Mountain Hut, where, if you have booked ahead, you can stay overnight (¥15,000 per night for one person including dinner and breakfast).
Many Kamikochi hikers encounter the macaques that live wild across Nagano and have developed a penchant for onsens. It’s shocking to see a monkey in the wild, but it’s less concerning than bumping into the black bears that are also spotted in Kamikochi (although less frequently). Bear bells are sold widely, and their clanging is part of the soundtrack of hiking the Japanese Alps.
Okuhida Onsengo Fukuji is a rustic mountain village taken right from the pages of history books. Only two short buses from Kamikochi, the village is lit at night with a warm orange glow. Lanterns light the paths in and around Ryokan Yumoto Choza (¥80,000 for a double with dinner and breakfast). Plush, with rustic natural wooden and stone textures, the entry is commanded by a central fireplace, always burning, with bearskins set out for guests to sit.
After changing into your yukata (house lounging clothes), take your towel and basket along the stone path toward the outdoor onsen for a pre-dinner soak, stopping by a wooden hut with a pot of simmering tea and the gentle sound of water flowing into a stone water basin. There are steaming rock pools and wooden baths, all divided by gender for nude bathing. Some are private.
The focal point of a ryokan stay is the elaborate kaiseki dinner, which is a sequence of seven to 14 courses of Japanese haute cuisine focused on seasonality, style and freshness. Sometimes the dinners have references to classical poetry or history. Yumoto Choza has private dining rooms for all guests with drop tables and fire pits.
To start, four courses are carefully arranged at each setting, including an aperitif of chilled housemade plum wine served alongside local river puffer fish sashimi. A lacquerware platter features different textures including persimmon jelly, crisp roasted chestnut and deep-fried buckwheat miso. To the right is a simmering pot of medicinal chicken soup with petal mushrooms and lemongrass. The waiter brings a local Takayama dry sake and then ignites the fire in the pit set within the banquet table, theatrically staking a skewered whole grilled river fish in the sand. It is served with roasted tofu and gohei mochi, a grilled rice ball dipped in a rich miso sauce. Next is the yakiniku course where you self-grill beef, onions and peppers. The parade continues with spare ribs, rice, miso soup, pickles and a green tea custard.
After dinner, you can return to the outdoor onsen to dip yourself in the hot bath and breathe in the mountain air while watching the steam curl upward. Lay on a stone, naked, and stare at the moon to the sound of the spring water.
Day 3: Waterfalls and Edo-Era Streets
Take a constitutional spin around the small garden outside your room using the door-side wooden sandals. Then, head to breakfast, which is a fraction as elaborate as dinner but with all the same textures. (Try the sour plum.) From directly outside the ryokan, a bus connects to the village of Hirayu Onsen and onward to the town of Hida Takayama.
You could spend several days exploring the town, which was once a provincial governor’s seat, and a carpentry center in the 1600s. The preserved exteriors on the Edo-era streets are crafted in dark-stained wood with slats, screens and doors. They are all full of their own character, but in harmony with the other houses and shops — an essential quality that echoes across Japanese culture.
After fortifying yourself with snacks from the combini, or convenience store (try the onigiri, which is the rice and seaweed equivalent of a sandwich), take the train two stops from Takayama to the town of Kokufu for a hike at Utsue 48 Waterfalls Prefectural Park (¥100). Midday is the ideal time to see the maples on fire in the sun against the waterfalls, which grow in size as you climb the stone stairs toward the mountain peak.
Once back in Hida Takayama, walk up to Kitayama Park for hilltop views and some traditional apple cake (¥600) at Ichii, the hilltop cafe. On the way down, stop by Sakurayama Nikkokan (¥820), a museum devoted to Takayama festival parade floats, which are known for being intricate, lantern-lit and painted in reds and golds. They are the centerpiece of the town’s October festival.
If you have time, you can visit Hida no Sato (¥700), an Edo-era farmhouse village and open-air museum, with exhibits devoted to local crafts such as silk production that is about a half an hour’s walk from town. The historic farmhouse style is distinctive with steep thatched roofs (gassho-zukuri) named because they resemble two hands in prayer. The farmhouses were moved from nearby Shirakawa-go and have given the region UNESCO World Heritage status.
Or, stop on the way to the train station for the quintessential Takayama pairing of Hida beef and sake. Hida is a type of high-quality Wagyu beef raised in Gifu Prefecture. Hida Beef Baya is a small restaurant, with no website, where you can order the beef raw, aburi style (broiled with a blowtorch), or yakitori style on a grilled skewer. Then stop at one of the sake breweries that have been perfecting the liquor for 300 years, relying on the local mountain well water and high-quality polished rice. Founded in 1695, Niki Sake Brewery has thick wooden vaulted beams, and the original well and is adorned with a traditional sugidama, a ball of cedar leaves (¥100 for tastings).
Take the evening train to Nagoya where you change to a bullet train to Kyoto (3 hours total), warmed by the sake and with a fallen maple leaf in your back pocket.
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