Shizuoka Bypass Course Overview
The Shizuoka Bypass course starts at Lake Tankui
(田貫湖) and takes you down through Fujiomiya city
(富士宮市) along the coast before reaching back up at Kurata (蔵田) bus stop. The Tokai Nature Trail Vol. 1 does not show the bypass route, this route is only shown on the official Shizuoka prefectural maps. This bypass is sometimes ignored in other guides as well, which is unfortunate. The Shizuoka Bypass course is covered in prefectural maps A, G, H, I.
The Bypass courses gives you a different perspective of Japan than the main route, which keeps you mainly in the mountains and rural towns. The Bypass has you walking through the city, and at some points taking the train or rope ways to reach your next location. You do walk through the forest, and a presents you with some of the best views of Mt. Fuji on the course.
The bypass course may not be for everyone but don’t dismiss the course because it takes out of the forest and into the city. The places where this course leads you to three beautiful water falls, Shiraito Falls
(白糸滝), Otodome Falls (音止の滝) and Choshiguchi Falls (銚子口の滝).
The website guides serve as an over view of each prefectural course the Ebook goes into much more detail about each section, this is because the prefectural courses offer multiple routes.
The course overview of each prefecture shows the outline of the course, and some of the major points of interest. The Tokai trail offers many different routes, and the maps, even those on the trail, do not always show all courses. To address this issues I wrote a free guidebook that covers the complete trail.