【Spectacular Views of Shiga】Sunset from Mount Ibuki’s Summit Parking Area.

Visiting the Ibukiyama Star-Gazing Event 2024

On May 3rd, during Golden Week 2024, I went to the Ibukiyama Star-Gazing Event 2024, which had been announced some time in advance.
I first came across this event through a post on Facebook. The attached image showed a mountaintop parking lot at night, with a deep blue sky and the lights of participants glowing softly—an incredibly photogenic scene.
The moment I saw it, I knew I had to go, so I immediately worked it into my schedule.

I Underestimated It — The Ibukiyama Driveway to the Highest Point in the Prefecture Is Terrifying

To get there, you take the Ibukiyama Driveway. I had checked the location and route many times on Google Maps, but actually driving it was a completely different experience.
At first, it looks like an ordinary mountain road, but as you go on, the views gradually open up and the sense of height increases.

The truth is, I’m afraid of heights. Even reaching the third floor on an escalator in a shopping mall is enough to make me uncomfortable.
So as the scenery outside the car window became higher and more open along the Ibukiyama Driveway, my body tensed up, and I couldn’t stop feeling uneasy.

I lost count of how many times I thought, “This must be the summit already.” Instead of arriving, the obstacles kept disappearing, the view kept expanding, and the sense of height only intensified.
More than once, I found myself blurting out, “Wait—there’s still more?” as I drove on.

The Spectacular View from the Ibukiyama Summit Parking Lot

The Ibukiyama summit parking lot sits at an elevation of 1,260 meters. As the highest point in the prefecture—and with not a single cloud in the sky that day—the view was unlike anything I had ever seen.
At 1,260 meters, the world below really does feel incredibly far away.

From a photography perspective, being at this height made everything feel different: the closeness of the transition in the sky’s colors, the sunlight coming in from the side even though it wasn’t yet sunset, and the unique quality of light just after the sun dipped below the horizon.
It was that distinctive color and way the light wraps around the landscape—something I’d only ever seen in advertising photographs.

Standing there, I couldn’t help but think that it really is worth going to places you don’t normally visit from time to time.

Location & Access

Ibukiyama mountaintop parking lot Ibukiyama stargazing party 2024,Photography,Image