Koya town gives the usual colour here as late October to the first days of November. The mountain sits high enough that its cherry blossom does not open until the middle of April, and the autumn runs correspondingly early. The town is a basin ringed by peaks, with temples and lodging temples filling the flat ground in the middle.

The town lists the places where the colour is worth walking to: the Jabara-michi, the grounds around the Reihokan, the front of the Eireiden, the Karukaya-do, the Daimon gate and the Tokugawa mausoleum. The Jabara-michi is the one to walk first. It is a short lane running east from the Danjo Garan compound, and the branches close over the top of it, so you are inside the colour rather than looking at it.

Koyasan was closed to women for most of its history. Halls called nyonindo stood at each of the seven entrances where women were turned back, and from them a path was worn around the ridge line so that they could circle the mountain and pray towards the inner sanctuary from outside it. That path is still walkable and the trees along it turn with everything else. It is the quietest colour on the mountain, for reasons that are not comfortable.

Staying in a temple lodging gets you the morning service, which begins before the light does and is cold. From December to March there is lying snow, so anyone driving needs winter tyres; most people come up by train and cable car.