Today, most visitors to Kamakura reach the former shogun's capital by rail. But the railway was not blasted through hills until 1889, and in shogunal days travelers arrived via the seven kiridoshi, passes cut through hills as entrances to the city. Deciding to enter Kamakura like the ancients, we took a bus to Asahina in Yokohama from Kanazawa Hakkei Station on the Keikyu Main line.
The Asahina Kiridoshi had to go through a hill in order to easily connect Kamakura with Mutsuura, now in Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama, at the behest of Regent Yasutoki Hojo in 1241. The pass was important, for Mutsuura was a center of salt production and also Kamakura's outport, bustling with ships from the Boso Peninsula in present-day Chiba Prefecture and as far away as China.
Yasutoki personally supervised the construction. He even provided his horse as a pack animal. From the following year, 1242, salt and other commodities were carried from Mutsuura over the Asahina Pass to Kamakura.