Teriha-kyo means, roughly, the gorge where the leaves shine, and the name was given by the haiku poet Mizuhara Shuoshi, who also named the waterfalls. There are eleven of them, large and small, scattered along about five kilometres of road in the Okutone headwater forest in the north of Minakami. Peak is mid-to-late October; the tourism association's long-run estimate for this particular valley is around the fifteenth.

The thing to understand before setting out is that this is not a walk. There is no car park. There is no footpath. The gorge is seen from the road, through the car window, at whatever speed the traffic ahead of you permits.

The forest belongs to the Okutone water source reserve, upstream of the reservoirs that supply the Kanto plain, which is part of why so little has been built here.

That makes it a strange kind of famous place—one you cannot stand in. It also makes the choice of day matter more than usual: the road is narrow, passing places are few, and rain or a queue turns the whole thing into a slow corridor of wet glass. Go on a clear weekday if you can. And if you are working through the area, note that Tanigawadake peaks around the fifth and this valley around the fifteenth, so a week apart buys you two different autumns in one town.