Yakushima SPest. 2007
Eighteen seasons · 98.2% summit completion · since 2007
Hand-built routes through ancient cedar country — six guests to a guide, zero plastic, no outsourcing, every booking funding the replanting of three Yakusugi cedars through the Yakushima Forest Trust.
An editorial standfirst
Yakushima SP was founded in 2007 in Miyanoura by Hirohide Arima, a third-generation island guide, and is still run from the same restored 1932 cedar lumber house that serves as our headquarters and as pre- and post-trek lodging for our guests. Our team of eleven full-time guides were all born here; their average tenure on staff is nine years, and we have had zero guide turnover in the last four seasons.
Every route we lead is built from on-island knowledge — never outsourced, never resold. We cap each departure at six trekkers, a fraction of the local industry average. Our lead guide, Tokuo Arima, is the only Yakushima guide certified as a senior alpine specialist by both the JMGA and the Japan Mountain Guide Association. And with every booking we plant three Yakusugi cedars through the Yakushima Forest Trust — 41,200 trees to date.
If you are looking for a quiet, considered way to walk into one of the oldest forests on earth — under the guidance of people whose family has known these trails for three generations — you are in the right place.
— The Arima family & the guides of Yakushima SP
This season's departures
A small, deliberate catalog — chosen each season for what the forest, weather, and wildlife are actually doing. Capped at six guests per guide on every route.
Flagship · 5 days
Our founding route and still our most walked. A measured ascent through 1,000- to 2,400-year-old yakusugi stands to the 1,300m Jomonsugi plateau — the oldest cryptomeria on the island, felled by an Edo-era storm and revered in local memory ever since. We move slowly, we carry everything out, and we have a 98.2% summit completion rate over the last five seasons.
Check This Season's Departures
Day route · 6 hours
A half-day traverse of the moss-and-stream ravine that inspired the forest scenes of the Studio Ghibli classic Princess Mononoke. Dense, hushed, and the gentlest route we offer.
Wildlife · 2 days
A four-season observation route we are uniquely permitted to lead by Yakushima Town — quietly paced wetlands and high-marsh traverses for the island's two most watched species. We observe; we do not stage.
Traverse · 8 days
Our longest and most varied route: eight days from the subtropical Pacific coast, up through the cedar belt, and across the high ridge to the Jomonsugi summit before descending on the island's western flank.
Add-on · 2 nights
Pre- and post-trek lodging in our restored 1932 cedar lumber house in Miyanoura port — five guest rooms, family meals, gear drying, and a quiet evening to walk off jet lag before stepping into the forest.
As featured in & certified by
Eighteen seasons. One forest.
Seasons guiding on the island, founded 2007
Guests led to Jomonsugi across 3,800+ treks
Jomonsugi summit completion, last five seasons
Yakusugi cedars re-stocked via the Forest Trust
Verified annually by the Yakushima Sustainable Tourism Council and published in our year-end stewardship report.
The people who walk you into the forest
Lead guide · Senior alpine specialist
The only guide on Yakushima certified by both the JMGA and the Japan Mountain Guide Association as a senior alpine specialist. Son of founder Hirohide, born in Miyanoura, and the steady hand at the front of every Jomonsugi departure we run.
Tokuo trained under his father from the age of fourteen and finished the JMGA senior alpine exam in 2009, the youngest guide on the island to do so. He has now led more than 1,200 summits to Jomonsugi and writes the route notes our other guides work from each season. When he is not on the mountain he is restoring cedar trails with the Forest Trust, or fishing the port in Miyanoura.
Senior apprentice · Wildlife lead
Our senior apprentice, four years into our in-house three-year apprenticeship, and the guide who leads most of our Wilson's Stork and Yakushika observation departures.
Mei is Hirohide's niece and the first woman in the family to take on full-time guiding. She holds a Japan Wildlife Observation Society certification and, with Tokuo, built the four-season observation routing we are uniquely permitted to lead. She speaks quietly, walks even more quietly, and is the reason our wildlife guests often see things before they expect to.