Shōryū-ji (Temple 36) to Kongōfuku-ji (Temple 38)
The Farthest Point
- Distance
- 140 km
- Climb
- 1,500 m up, 1,500 m down
- Ground
- 5 to 300 m
- Time
- 32 to 42 hours
- Difficulty
- hard
- Underfoot
- coastal, paved, forest
Where this day sits on the Shikoku 88
Above, the highest and lowest ground of each of its 10 stages. Below, the word each day is given.
From open-pilgrimages: each stage's highest and lowest ground and its interior theme.
The day
Cape Ashizuri is the bottom of the world. Kūkai trained here as a young ascetic, staring at the ocean and sky until the boundary between them dissolved. The walk here is the most isolated stretch of the pilgrimage. You are as far from Temple 1 as you will ever be — in every sense.
What pilgrims often meet here
- Feeling genuinely remote from civilization
- Standing at the cape and feeling the scale of the journey
- The turn northward feeling like a homecoming
What is at your own Cape Ashizuri — the farthest point from home?
The ground
The longest gap: 80.7 km from Temple 37 to Temple 38 at Cape Ashizuri, the southernmost point of Shikoku. Then 53 km back north to Temple 39.
- 80.7 km between Temple 37 and Temple 38 — the longest gap on the entire pilgrimage. Plan at least 3 days.
The light
Sunrise and sunset in Shōryū-ji (Temple 36) depend on the day you walk.
Walk it with Pilgrim
Pilgrim walks the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage in parts, one day at a time in Honor mode, with each day's own morning words and its own question at the end. Its days are cut more finely than the stages here, so this stretch falls across 6 days in the app:
- Tosa, day 8 Tosa to Ohenro Guest House Lilian
- Tosa, day 9 Ohenro Guest House Lilian to 民宿あわの里
- Tosa, day 10 民宿あわの里 to Iwamoto-ji (Temple 37)
- Tosa, day 11 Iwamoto-ji (Temple 37) to Henro House Maaru
- Tosa, day 12 Henro House Maaru to 民宿いさりび
- Tosa, day 13 民宿いさりび to 金剛福寺宿坊
Each opens that day in Pilgrim, or shows it with where to get the app.