As your Hozugawa River Boat Ride comes to an end, what memories stick with you now?

Is it the steep ravine views? The animals you saw there? Or perhaps the back of the ferryman who dutifully guided your vessel?

Everything transforms when you take the ride.

They change, for instance, with the seasons. Mountain cherry blossoms greet the boat in the spring, and before long the fresh verdure grows lush and vivid as summer brings vigor to the views. You might see sweetfish on days when the water is clearest. As autumn approaches and the leaves turn, mountain azaleas blaze red across the mountains. All color disappears in winter, leaving the trees bare and the mountains quiet.

Of note among those changes is the fog that rolls in during autumn. When you ride the morning boats, the fog will be too thick to see anything at first. Imagine rafting through the mist, with only the shadow of a switchback curve barely visible ahead. A boat floating in a monochrome world – it’s a magical vista, straight out of a painting. Just where is this boat going? It seems as if it floats on mists that lead to paradise.

The mists gradually part shortly after departure. Waves will then become visible on the water’s surface. It is the wind. Upon its breath the mist is rolled up into updrafts, like tendrils of vapor reaching into the air. In a moment the mists will disappear, leaving an open sky above you. The sun shines from the cloudless blue heights, its light glittering upon the water’s surface. A dazzling light show bursts before your eyes, so bright you cannot even open them, along the swift and snaking dragon that is the Hozugawa River’s current. At that moment you see the prize so greedily guarded by the mists: autumn red leaves as far as the eye can see. You truly feel as if you’ve entered another world.

Once you alight from the boat, you’ll be greeted by Arashiyama’s lively sightseeing spots. In that moment you’ll ask yourself if the vistas you experienced along the Hozugawa were real or not. Captivated, you’ll wonder if you dreamt it all.


This is how the Hozukyō Ravine’s landscape changes with the drifting of your boat. It places the cycle of nature in clear view. The ferrymen witness this cycle throughout the year, as the seasons bring their changes. Autumn heralds the end across the mountains as the leaves drift to the ground. However, these red leaves still have sugars left in them. In other words, they will leave nutrients as they wither. The mountains will feed upon them, granting energy to every tree root. During the winter, it seems as if the mountain returns to silence, but the roots store that energy within them for the next cycle.

There is no spring without winter – no cherry blossoms, and no fresh buds to grow with them. Buds that herald the brilliant green of summer. Nature cycles thus in the Hozukyō Ravine, like clockwork. Perhaps humans are not so different. What do four centuries feel like to you? Feeling the seemingly eternal cycle of life in the Ravine, the ferrymen themselves will dock their boats for the last time in 40 years’ time.

We invite you to feel what it is to become one with nature at the Hozukyō Ravine. A human life may be tiny, over in a fleeting moment, compared to the Ravine’s grand cycle. Nevertheless, this moment exists thanks to that repetition. Moments connect to other moments, creating a line that leads to the present. Without each of them, the link does not exist. We hope you feel the importance of each and every day.

Allow me to ask once again, then: As your Hozugawa River Boat Ride comes to an end, what memories stick with you now?

Surely, you’ve witnessed a condensation of the cycle of nature in the hours you spent on the Hozugawa River Boat Ride. Everything transforms when you take the ride. And when you next embark on the journey, you will make brand-new discoveries all over again.