Yamadera

And now, back to the show.

We've talked about climbing or hiking mountain areas associated with Shinto, but what about a Buddhist temple area? Introducing number seven, Yamadera Temple in Yamagata Prefecture.

This is another surprisingly quick and straightforward climb off sets of scattered stairs on a cliffside around a decidedly more desolate and rundown collection of structures.

The place always looks abandoned, besides the entry fee booth at the base, that is.

With seemingly no one around the temple besides fellow visitors, it's like the place isn't getting much in the way of upkeep, evidenced by the assorted scaffolding and ladders you see on the way.

The structures are pretty rundown, and it's all quite vertical and actually reminds me of a platforming level in a video game.

Mountain temples like Yamadera were built by religious ascetics who valued isolation and elevated sacred places.

The traditional technique for building shrines into raw rock faces is known as kakezukuri, involving cantilevered wooden scaffold construction.