Kanbiree waterfall (カンビレーの滝)
Kanbiree waterfall is one of Iriomote’s most visited waterfalls, and an excellent introduction to the unspoiled scenery of the Yaeyama archipelago.
The hike: When exiting the boat, tell the driver what time you’d like to return, or there will likely not be a boat waiting for you when you return. (In high season it should be fine, but in winter the boats are few and far between). From the boat landing, head up the concrete path with the concrete and metal retaining wall on your left. You’ll soon pass by a concrete rest area on your left, which may have tents pitched over the picnic tables to keep out the rain. The trail becomes a mix of concrete and rock for the next stretch, until you reach a junction. If you need to use the restroom, then take the path on your left. Otherwise, continue straight on the easy-to-follow route. There are a few waterfalls on the left side, usually after passing over a wooden bridge. Your next landmark, after 15 to 20 minutes of easy hiking, will be a trail on the right heading towards a lookout point (展望台). Climb up the stairs for a great view of Mariyudu waterfall (マリユドゥ滝). Retrace your steps to the main trail and continue heading up the river towards the falls. In about 10 minutes or so, you’ll see a trail heading off on the right to Mariyudu waterfall. At the time of writing (March 2012), this trail was off limits to hikers. It’s just as well, because if you climb under the rope you’ll find the trail incredibly slippery and overgrown. It meets up with the river above the waterfall, but you can’t actually view the falls from here, so it’s better to ignore this trail and head towards Kanbiree waterfall. You’ll reach those falls in another 10 minutes or so. The trail ends at an open area with a great view of the fall, but unfortunately a lot of the rocks here have been defaced with graffiti. If you’re an experienced hiker, then I highly recommend heading to the top of the falls. To get there you’ll basically need to follow the rocks on the left side of the river. There is a trail marked with ribbon, but be careful in wet conditions because the entire area is slippery. After a few minutes of tricky footwork, you’ll see a rope draped across a stream coming in from the left. Grab onto the rope and make your way through the water to the other side. After this point it gets much easier, and you can rock hop a fair ways up the river. Take a break at any place you choose. There are some great swimming holes the further up the river you scramble. This is where the Iriomote traverse outlined in the Lonely Planet guidebook begins, but you’ll need to register your intentions with the Iriomote police and you’re prohibited from traversing alone. Most Japanese guidebooks recommend camping halfway through the traverse to help break up the distance. Once you find the trail it’s actually pretty well marked, with signposts every 200 meters. Anyway, retrace your steps back to the ferry terminal and consider doing the short hike to the Utara coal mine ruins if you’ve still got the energy.
When to go: This hike can easily be done year round, but bring plenty of water in the summer and be careful of slippery rocks in wet conditions.
Access: From Uehara ferry terminal, take a bus bound for Shirahama and get off at Urauchibashi (浦内橋). The first bus is at 10:43am, but if staying at Mariudo Guesthouse they can drop you off there in time for the first boat at 9:30am. From the bus stop, cross the street and walk through the small parking lot, turning right to go down to the boat landing by the river. The boat costs ￥1800 and takes about 30 minutes to get to the start of the trail at Gunkan-Iwa (軍艦岩). The boat would be a lot faster if the driver didn’t keep stopping to point out all the geographical features in Japanese.
Level of difficulty: 1 out of 5 (elevation change ~50m)
Distance: 5km (2-1/2 to 4 hours)
Tags: blogsherpa, hiking, Iriomote, japan, Kanbiree waterfall, Okinawa
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Hiking in Japan 
July 29, 2013 at 11:00 am
Thanks for the info. I’m going next week and I’ll try these hikes!
December 14, 2015 at 11:11 pm
Were here and continued on the traverse late November 2015. The boat company has shuttle-buses from the Uehara port, but they obviously only run if the ferry isn’t cancelled.
Regarding the traverse, the information in the Lonely Planet Hiking guide and how people in general see it (“Very dangerous, you’ll get lost in the jungle and die”) seems somewhat out of date. It has been recently re-marked, and there was a pink ribbon in a tree for every 20m or so. And a big aluminum sign-post with distance markings every 500m. Getting lost is no longer a problem! The water-level in the rivers were low, we could rock-hop all crossings, no wading was necessary. In some parts the trail actually follows a creek-bed, but they were all semi-dry, so we only had to battle the mud. Gaiters would’ve been nice, and also helps keeping out leaches and snakes. We saw neither though. The temperature was manageable when we were there in November, can’t quite imagine doing it in the height of summer. There are plenty of creeks to fill your water-bottle, we didn’t carry more than 1L, and used purification tablets.
The boating company first told us that we would need permission from the police, which we hadn’t. They tried to phone them for us, but since it was saturday, they didn’t answer! We filled in a sheet with our details and hiking plan at the ticket office for the boats, and that seemed to be good enough.
After the dense jungle part of the trail, the last 7 km to Ohara are on an easy forest road.