Enmei-ji (Temple 54) to Maegami-ji (Temple 64)
Perseverance
- Distance
- 60 km
- Climb
- 1,800 m up, 1,600 m down
- Ground
- 20 to 750 m
- Time
- 14 to 18 hours
- Difficulty
- moderate
- Underfoot
- paved, mountain, 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
The path from Imabari climbs steadily toward Yokomine-ji, Temple 60, perched at 750 meters on a ridge where Kūkai is said to have practiced mountain asceticism. Your legs remember every mountain that came before this one, and yet this ascent feels different — not punishing but clarifying, as though the effort itself is burning away something you no longer need. Below, the Seto Inland Sea glimmers through gaps in the cedar canopy. By Saijō, the temples come in quick succession again, and you carry the altitude with you like a secret. You are deep in the Province of Enlightenment now, and the understanding arrives not as thought but as rhythm — step after step, breath after breath.
What pilgrims often meet here
- The grueling switchbacks up to Yokomine-ji and the silence at the summit
- A sense of physical mastery earned through weeks of walking
- Glimpses of the Inland Sea reorienting your sense of the island
- Feeling the pilgrimage approaching its final quarter
What in you has been strengthened by the climbing, and what has fallen away?
The ground
Imabari to Saijō through eastern Ehime. Includes the challenging climb to Yokomine-ji (Temple 60) at 750m.
The light
Sunrise and sunset in Enmei-ji (Temple 54) 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 3 days in the app:
- Iyo, day 10 Hōjō Suigun Youth Hostel to Nankobo (Temple 55)
- Iyo, day 11 Nankobo (Temple 55) to ゲストハウス BEKKU
- Iyo, day 12 ゲストハウス BEKKU to Maegami-ji (Temple 64)
Each opens that day in Pilgrim, or shows it with where to get the app.