About Akiu Waterfall (Akiu Otaki [秋保大滝])
The Akiu Waterfall (Akiu Otaki [秋保大滝]; also Akiu Great Falls or just Akiu Falls) was a nice 55m waterfall on the outskirts of Sendai towards the northern part of Honshu in the Miyagi-ken (Miyagi Prefecture). It was said to be one of Japan‘s three most beautiful waterfalls though that could be debatable after what we had seen on the remainder of our 2009 Japan trip throughout the country. Still, this one was no slouch and it was the primary reason we visited the Akiu Onsen spa area in the first place. I’m guessing the name of the waterfall had something to do with Autumn since the first kanji character is Chinese for Autumn.
Fronting the entrance to the waterfall was a temple or shrine just beyond the Akiu Otaki bus stop and the torii at its entrance. From there, we took a short paved walkway that took us to a small viewing area. It was at this cozy viewing deck that we got ourselves a top down look at the Akiu Waterfall.
Beyond the viewing deck, there was a walking path that also linked this main viewing area complex to the main road. Turning to the left at that main road, we then crossed a bridge over the gorge on which the falls resided and onto another walkway towards the base of the falls.
Unfortunately, we only made it up to the barricade blocking further progress as unstable ground beneath the cliffhugging walkway forced its indefinite closure so we couldn’t get any other views of the falls besides the top down views of the main viewing deck. Thus, the only way to safely have a look at the falls from its base was from the pictures here or postcards sold here.
All told, we probably spent about 90 minutes to do all the walking plus have plenty of time to wait for the return bus (thanks to the trail closure).
We thought this waterfall was a little bit off the tourist path because we were slaved to the public transportation schedules. And the bus service to this area wasn’t all that frequent. See the directions below to get an idea of how we were able to pull this off.
It’s also worth noting that while we were basing ourselves at the Akiu Onsen, within walking distance was the Rairaikyo Gorge, which was a relaxing nature walk within a forested gorge area interspersed with interesting rocks and mini-cliffs. Inside the gorge itself, we encountered at least two small named waterfalls – Shigure-taki Falls (時雨滝) and Misuji-taki Falls (三筋滝).
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