Yamagata Hidden Gems

Yamagata is a chain of basins strung along the Mogami River and walled in by mountains on every side, and that enclosure explains both the weather and the religion. The valley traps heat — Yamagata City held Japan's national temperature record for seventy-four years — and it traps snow, which is why the region built the deepest hot-spring culture in Tohoku. The Dewa Sanzan, three peaks inland from Tsuruoka, have been a Shugendo pilgrimage circuit for over a thousand years, and the yamabushi who keep it still take lay visitors through the practice; the five-storey pagoda at the foot of Haguro stands in cedar forest with no town attached to it. Yamadera, further east, is a temple built into a cliff at the top of a thousand stone steps, and the climb is the visit. The lowlands do something else entirely: the Sagae basin grows most of Japan's cherries, and the orchards run to the city limits.