Neonotaki Falls
Water cascades down the face of a 63-meter cliff into the river below at Neonotaki Falls. It is one of more than 200 waterfalls in Gero’s Hida-Osaka district, the topography of which was shaped by eruptions of Mt. Ontake around 54,000 years ago.
It takes roughly an hour to reach the falls via a 2.4-kilometer hiking trail. The course passes Amadori Rock, a 150-meter-high cliff that was created when a lava flow hardened. In the spring, house martins build their mud nests on the cliff face. Japanese serow also inhabit the area around Neonotaki Falls.
The waterfall has been extolled for its beauty since the Edo period (1603–1867) and memorialized in the paintings of artists such as Nukina Kaioku (1778–1863). Kaioku was a renowned ink-wash artist with a style influenced by classic Chinese landscapes.