A stone marker by the roadside, hydrangeas spilling onto the path and more than fifty torii swallowed by the cedars… In Yokosuka, Fushimi Hakuseki Inari hides a small piece of Kyoto at the bottom of a valley.
Is it really this way?
At the far end of Taura Ōsaku-chō, in the hills of Yokosuka, the road slips between a few houses before vanishing under the greenery. No grand avenue, no souvenir shop. A dark stone marker bearing the characters 伏見白赤稲荷社 is almost the only clue.
You walk past a small playground, follow the narrow valley and then climb the slope. The path crosses an old farmed area called Zen’ō. The trees close in, the houses fade away and a first red torii appears among the hydrangeas. The shrine begins with a very simple question: is it really this way?
Kyoto, forest edition
Fushimi Hakuseki Inari is a fairly recent shrine. In 1966, a share of the divine spirit of Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto was formally transferred here, following the principle of bunrei. That way the same deity can be honoured in several places without ever leaving its original shrine.
The link with Kyoto shows straight away: more than fifty torii line the slope, a rare concentration on the Miura Peninsula. But here there is no packed crowd and no perfectly aligned vermilion tunnel. The gates climb between the trunks, turn with the path and sometimes vanish behind the ferns. Kyoto sent the spirit. Yokosuka took care of the moss.
White and red, mostly red
Hakuseki is written with the characters 白赤, “white” and “red”. The city of Yokosuka notes that white and red torii once alternated up the slope. Today, vermilion has clearly won.
Some gates keep a bright red; others have faded in the rain, their bases blackened by damp. Lined up one behind another, they cut the forest into a series of uneven frames. With each one, the view shifts slightly: a trunk, a stone, a patch of light. White has almost left the scene. The name hasn’t forgotten.
The hydrangeas take over the path
In early summer, hydrangeas keep you company on the way up. Their big blue, mauve or still-green heads lean against the red pillars and sometimes spill into the middle of the path.
The shrine grounds were planted with plum and peach trees, azaleas (satsuki in particular) and hydrangeas, so the procession changes colour with the seasons. In the photos, the red of the torii crosses a cloud of flowers before diving back into the shade of the cedars. At Fushimi Inari, the torii form a tunnel. Here, the hydrangeas are gently trying to close it.
More gates than shrine
At the top, the shrine fits into a tiny vermilion pavilion surrounded by a railing. A sacred shimenawa rope, a few strips of white paper and simple offerings are enough to mark the presence of the kami.
A little lower down, a stone lantern and two mismatched benches sit in a small clearing in the woods. Between the branches you can make out the valley and the roofs you left a few minutes earlier. The place still draws people for Hatsu-uma, Inari’s traditional festival held on the first Day of the Horse, and in November for the anniversary of the deity’s arrival. The rest of the time, the forest takes the conversation back. More than fifty gates to reach a shrine that almost fits in a single room: the path clearly needed more scenery than the arrival.
The red fades behind you
The way down leads back to the hydrangeas, the small stone marker and the neighbourhood road. The torii overlap one last time, then the trees erase them one by one.
Fushimi Hakuseki Inari is not a miniature copy of the famous Kyoto shrine. It’s its wild cousin: damper, lonelier, slightly crooked and almost absorbed by the mountain. Kyoto has kilometres of torii. Here, Yokosuka found just enough red to make the path disappear.
More Inari shrines away from the crowds: Takayama Inari Shrine, the Fushimi of the north, and Motonosumi Inari, its torii facing the sea. Getting there: Yokosuka city ↗.
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