S P O T ／ SPOT-277

Saruhashi Bridge

猿橋さるはし

Spanning the deep gorge of the Katsura River in Otsuki, Yamanashi, the Saruhashi is a bridge that does the seemingly impossible: it crosses more than thirty meters of empty air without a single pier touching the water below. The gorge is too deep for conventional supports, so its builders solved the problem from the banks inward — stacking timber cantilever beams, the hanegi, in four projecting layers out from the bedrock of each side until they nearly meet, then laying the deck across the gap. The result hangs some 31 meters above the river, about 30.9 meters long, and seen from below the layered beams fan out like a wooden staircase reaching into the void. It is counted as one of the "Three Unusual Bridges of Japan," alongside the Kintai Bridge and the Kazura Bridge, and was designated a National Place of Scenic Beauty in 1932. Legend credits its design to Shirako, an immigrant garden master who is said to have watched monkeys link their bodies to form a living bridge across the chasm — hence the name, which means "monkey bridge." Hiroshige and other ukiyo-e masters painted it, and for centuries it has been admired as both an engineering marvel and a scenic wonder.