Nishizawa Gorge

We hiked Nishizawa Gorge on Lia’s insistence after she found a single photograph online of water so improbably jade-colored she assumed it had been edited. It hadn’t been. We drove up from Kofu into the folds of Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park on a clear October morning, the plan being a long loop trail rather than a quick photo stop, and by the time we reached the first real overlook of the stream I understood exactly what had stopped her scrolling. The color is genuinely strange, somewhere between turquoise and pale jade, and it holds that tone even in shadowed stretches of the gorge where you’d expect the water to just look dark.

Across the Suspension Bridge

Early in the trail, the path crosses a suspension bridge strung high over the gorge, swaying gently underfoot in a way that made Lia grip the cables a little tighter than she probably would have liked me pointing out. From the middle of it, the view opens up in both directions: smooth granite boulders below, worn into strange rounded shapes by centuries of that same jade water, and steep forested slopes rising on either side that were just beginning to turn red and gold. It’s the kind of crossing that forces you to stop and actually look rather than just walk through, and everyone on the bridge with us seemed to be doing exactly that, phones and hiking poles both briefly forgotten.

A String of Named Waterfalls

The trail beyond the bridge strings together a series of named waterfalls, each with its own small sign and its own slightly different character, some narrow and forceful, others broad and gentler over wide rock shelves. We stopped at nearly every one, and Lia developed strong, specific opinions about which was the best, an argument she was still making by the time we reached the last of them. The consistent jade color of the stream running beneath and between the falls gave the whole hike a coherence that a lot of waterfall trails lack, less a collection of separate sights than one long unfolding scene.

The Five-Tiered Finale

The trail’s high point, both literally and in terms of spectacle, is a five-tiered waterfall that the loop builds toward for its entire length, and it did not disappoint after everything leading up to it. Standing at the viewing area, watching all five tiers catch afternoon light at slightly different angles, it was easy to understand why this stretch is ranked among Japan’s best waterfalls. We’d timed our visit for late October specifically for the autumn color, and the surrounding slopes were deep red and gold exactly as promised, framing the white water and jade pools below in a way that felt almost deliberately composed. The full loop trail eventually returns you to the trailhead by a separate path, so you’re not retracing your steps the whole way back.

Getting There

Nishizawa Gorge is reached from Kofu Station, which connects to Tokyo via limited express trains in around ninety minutes, followed by a local bus to the gorge’s entrance near Nishizawa Keikoku, a ride of roughly an hour depending on the route and season. The full loop trail is a long day’s undertaking, several hours of hiking with real elevation change and river crossings, so sturdy footwear and an early start make a real difference, especially during the popular autumn color season when trails and buses both get busier.