楊子ヶ宿小屋

Unstaffed emergency shelter at about 1,590m on the crest of the Omine range, in Shirakawa, Totsukawa Village, Yoshino District, Nara Prefecture. It stands partway along the Omine Okugake trail, part of the World Heritage "Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range", roughly midway between Hakkyogatake (1,915m), the highest peak in the Kinki region, about 3.6km to the north, and Shakagatake (1,799m), about 2.9km to the south. The Okugake trail is a Shugendo route said to have been opened by En no Gyoja early in the 8th century; it links Yoshino and Kumano over some 170km of steep ridges between 1,200 and 1,900m. Along it survive 75 ritual sites known as nabiki, held to be dwelt in by gods and buddhas, and the stretch north of the hut, from Myojogatake to Yojinomori, contains Kiku-no-Iwaya, Gokorei and Funa-no-Tao among them. The area lies within Yoshino-Kumano National Park, designated in 1936, and because the route is a place of ascetic practice, felling trees along it has been forbidden since at least the late 15th century, so the forest is well preserved; the Magnolia sieboldii colony between Hakkyogatake and Myojogatake is a designated natural monument. No official source could be found describing the hut's manager, capacity or conditions of use.