Shiraito Falls | Karuizawa's Arc-Shaped Waterfall Curtain, Better in the Mist
Shiraito Falls in Karuizawa is a semicircular waterfall where groundwater seeps through rock and falls as dozens of parallel thin streams at once. We visited in heavy mist — the whole space was wrapped in white, the sound of water everywhere, and we ended up staying much longer than planned.
🚩 NTJ Firsthand Travel Story
About Shiraito Falls
Shiraito Falls (白糸の滝) is located in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture — about 15 minutes by car from Karuizawa Shinkansen Station. Buses run occasionally but the schedule is limited; driving is by far the most convenient option, and there's a paid parking lot near the entrance.
What makes this waterfall unusual is its shape. Rather than a single concentrated stream, groundwater seeps out from a semicircular arc of rock face, forming dozens of thin parallel flows that all fall simultaneously into a round pool below. Seen head-on, it looks less like a conventional waterfall and more like a translucent curtain of water draped across the whole cliff face.
The walk in
The path from the parking lot leads through tall trees, lined with bamboo railings. You can hear the water well before you arrive, and the mist starts becoming visible as you get close. There were other visitors, but the path is wide enough that it didn't feel crowded.
Along the way you pass a few smaller waterfalls first — water seeping through mossy rock faces and narrow gorges, quieter than the main falls and easy to miss if you're focused on getting to the destination.
Further along, a wide multi-tiered section appears — water dropping from several levels at once, the whole face a combination of white water and deep green vegetation. The sound gets noticeably louder here.
The main falls — the mist makes it
When the main Shiraito Falls came into view, the mist was already thick. The semicircular curtain of water appeared and disappeared through the white haze, the streams blending into the fog rather than standing out against it. The pool below rippled where each stream landed, but the overall visual effect was very still.
That stillness isn't about the absence of sound — the falls are loud. It's that the palette is so consistent: white fog, white water, deep green trees, no harsh contrasts. Your eyes don't tire. We stayed longer than we intended.
The forest trail nearby
After the main falls, there's a trail that continues along the stream into the forest. The tree density is high, light comes through in patches, and the ground and rocks are all wet. Occasionally there's the smell of moss.
A fallen tree lay diagonally across the hillside, completely covered in moss, blending into the surrounding green. On a clear day you might walk past without noticing. In the mist it was hard to miss — the kind of thing that makes a place feel genuinely undisturbed.
The Story of This Place
The water here doesn't come from a mountain stream. It's groundwater — rain that soaked into the earth around Mt. Asama and seeps back out where two rock layers meet. Because the source is underground, the flow barely changes with the seasons and the water stays clear; rain or shine, it spills down in countless white threads. That's exactly where the name comes from ("shiraito" means white threads). The drop is only about 3 meters, but the curtain stretches about 70 meters wide.
Here's something most visitors never realize: the graceful semicircle in front of you is largely man-made. It's thought that in the early Showa era (around the 1930s), engineers took two separate springs welling up in two valley floors, cut through the ridge between them to link the seepage into a single "spring line," then built a weir in front to form the pool — shaping the whole thing like a garden. And the reason the water runs so clean year-round lies in the ground beneath your feet: the lower layer is debris from a massive collapse of Mt. Kurofuyama about 24,000 years ago, and the upper layer is pumice dropped by Mt. Asama's great Tenmei eruption of 1783. The underground water seeps out right along that seam.
So where does all this water come from? It's said that rain falling on Mt. Asama travels underground for about six years before it finally surfaces here — a local saying, not a measured fact. Standing in front of it, watching clear water weep evenly from a wall of green, with none of a waterfall's roar and only the faintest trickle of sound, you suddenly understand: this isn't really a "waterfall" at all. It's a place where a mountain spends years quietly handing the rain back to you.
Before You Go
・Access: Hokuriku Shinkansen to Karuizawa Station, then rental car or taxi approx. 15 min; parking available at the site (fee applies)
・Admission: free
・Recommended in mist or after rain — the volume increases and the atmosphere is noticeably better
・Nearby: Kyū-Karuizawa Ginza shopping street, Kumoba Pond, Shirakaba Lake
・For Karuizawa day trips or transport passes, check Klook or KKday