The Hakone Loop: switchback railway, volcano and the lake torii

Hakone is a hot-spring town inside a collapsed volcano, an hour and a half from Tokyo, and the classic way to see it is a loop: you ride a different vehicle at each stage and end up back where you started. The walking is minimal — perhaps 5 km all told, between stations, around a crater and along the lakeshore — so this is an easy day out that still feels like an expedition.

The prize is Mount Fuji, visible across Lake Ashi on a clear day. It is entirely weather-dependent, and the mountain is more reliably out in the cold, dry months than in summer haze.

Getting there. Odakyu trains run from Shinjuku in Tokyo to Hakone-Yumoto in about 90 minutes by Romancecar. The loop runs Hakone-Yumoto → Gōra → Sōunzan → Ōwakudani → Tōgendai → across Lake Ashi to Moto-Hakone, and back by bus.

Permits & tickets. No permit needed. The Hakone Free Pass covers the whole loop — train, cable car, ropeway, boat and buses — and is cheaper than paying leg by leg. Hakone Shrine is free.

Good to know:

Ōwakudani is an active volcanic area. The ropeway and the crater walkways close on short notice when gas levels rise — check before you plan the day around it.
Run the loop in this direction and you’ll board the boat mid-afternoon, when the light on Fuji is best. Do it in reverse to dodge the tour groups.
Most people leave time for an onsen back in Hakone-Yumoto at the end.

اليوم 1

Around the caldera by rail, rope and boat

Hakone-Yumoto → Hakone Shrine, Moto-Hakone 5 km

التنقّل في هذا اليوم

Up the mountain by switchback railway and cable car, over a sulphur valley by ropeway, across the crater lake by boat, and back along the shore to a shrine standing in the water.

مقاطع

Hakone-Yumoto 0.6 km 📍 خريطة

Odawara → Hakone-Yumoto Station

Town streets

The gateway to Hakone and its oldest hot-spring town, sat where two rivers meet. The main street is a run of soba shops, sweet stalls and day-use bathhouses. Buy the Free Pass here if you haven't already, and save the onsen for the way home.

عن هذا المكان

Hakone-Yumoto Station is a railway station on the Hakone Tozan Line in Hakone, Kanagawa, Japan.
اقرأوا المزيد في ويكيبيديا ↗
صورة: Kounoichi · CC BY-SA 4.0
The switchback railway to Gōra 0.4 km 📍 خريطة

Hakone-Yumoto Station → Gōra Station

Mountain railway, then station streets

The Hakone Tozan Line is one of the steepest adhesion railways in Japan, and it climbs by reversing direction at a series of switchbacks — the driver and conductor swap ends of the train at each one. Hydrangeas line the track in June. Break at the Hakone Open-Air Museum a stop short of Gōra if you have time.

عن هذا المكان

The Hakone Tozan Line is a mountain railway in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is operated by Odakyu Hakone, an Odakyu Group company that also operates the Hakone Tozan Cable Car, Hakone Ropeway and Hakone Sightseeing Cruise.
اقرأوا المزيد في ويكيبيديا ↗
صورة: まも · Public domain
Cable car and ropeway to Ōwakudani 0.8 km 📍 خريطة

Gōra Station → Ōwakudani

Funicular, aerial ropeway and crater walkways

A funicular climbs to Sōunzan, where the ropeway lifts you over Ōwakudani — a bare, steaming valley of sulphur vents blasted open by an eruption some three thousand years ago. Get out and walk the boardwalks: the smell is spectacular, and the stalls sell black eggs boiled in the hot springs, their shells stained by the sulphur. Fuji looms behind on a clear day.

عن هذا المكان

Ōwakudani is a volcanic valley with active sulphur vents and hot springs in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was created around 3,000 years ago, as a result of the explosion of the Hakone volcano.
اقرأوا المزيد في ويكيبيديا ↗
صورة: Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA · CC BY 2.0
Down to Lake Ashi 0.3 km 📍 خريطة

Ōwakudani → Tōgendai

Aerial ropeway

The ropeway carries on down the far side, and the view opens all at once — Lake Ashi below, filling the floor of the caldera, with Fuji standing over the far end of it. Land at Tōgendai on the northern shore, where the boats leave.

عن هذا المكان

The Hakone Ropeway is the name of an aerial lift, as well as its operator. The funitel line links between Sōunzan and Tōgendai via Ōwakudani, all within Hakone, Kanagawa, Japan. The line became funitel in 2002, the second of its kind in the nation, after Hashikurasan Ropeway. It makes a part of the sightseeing route between Odawara and Lake Ashi. The company belongs to the Odakyū Group.
اقرأوا المزيد في ويكيبيديا ↗
صورة: Ikusuki · CC BY 2.0
Pirate ship across Lake Ashi 0.4 km 📍 خريطة

Tōgendai → Moto-Hakone

Sightseeing boat

The sightseeing boats are gilded mock galleons, which is silly and completely committed to, and they cross the crater lake in about half an hour. Sit on the open deck facing back up the lake: this is the classic Fuji view, and the only one you get without walking.

عن هذا المكان

Lake Ashi , also known as Hakone Lake or Ashinoko Lake, is a scenic lake in the Hakone area of Kanagawa Prefecture on Honshū, Japan. It is a crater lake situated along the southwestern wall of the caldera of Mount Hakone, a complex volcano that last erupted in 1170 CE at Ōwakudani. The lake is known for its views of Mount Fuji, its numerous hot springs, historic sites, and traditional ryokan. It lies along the historic Tōkaidō road, the main route linking Kyoto and Tokyo. Pleasure boats and ferries operate on the lake, several of which are styled after sailing warships.
اقرأوا المزيد في ويكيبيديا ↗
صورة: 663highland · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hakone Shrine and the lake torii 1.2 km 📍 خريطة

Moto-Hakone → Hakone Shrine

Cedar avenue and stone steps

A path of stone steps climbs through towering cedars to a shrine founded well over a thousand years ago and long revered by samurai. Below it, the vermilion Torii of Peace stands in the shallows with the lake behind — the most photographed thing in Hakone, with a queue to prove it. Buses run back to Hakone-Yumoto from Moto-Hakone.

عن هذا المكان

The Hakone Shrine is a Japanese Shinto shrine on the shores of Lake Ashi in the town of Hakone in the Ashigarashimo District of Kanagawa Prefecture. It is also known as the Hakone Gongen (箱根権現).
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صورة: Aimaimyi · CC BY-SA 3.0