Akinomiya Hot Springs

Highway Route 108 climbs west out of Yuzawa City and follows the Omono River upstream into the foothills of Mount Kurikoma. The road is not dramatic, but the landscape grows quieter mile by mile until you arrive at Akinomiya Hot Springs, a village of scattered inns and fumaroles tucked along the Yakunai River. The mountain behind it sends steam up through cracks in the ground at over fifty points across the geothermal field, which means that even in summer there is always something venting somewhere, some thin white plume rising without ceremony from a patch of bare earth beside the road.

The spring chemistry here is simple alkaline, the kind of water that is not trying to impress you with color or drama. It flows clear, feels faintly silky on the skin, and comes out of the earth at temperatures up to seventy-two degrees Celsius before being cooled to a reasonable bathing level. Because the pH sits on the alkaline side, regular bathers claim the water leaves their skin noticeably smoother, the same effect you get at many alkaline springs in northern Japan but delivered here with a mountain quiet that is harder to find at the better-known resort towns.

The experience that makes Akinomiya genuinely worth the drive is the Kawara-no-Yukko. Along the stony bed of the Yakunai River, hot spring water seeps directly up through the riverbed. Staff at a small nearby building hand you a shovel, and you wade out onto the stones and dig your own shallow pool between the rocks, diverting the hot water into a hollow you have made yourself. It is a little absurd and completely enjoyable. Once you have your pool dug to a depth that feels right, you sit in the warm water with the cold river current eddying around you, ordering food from the nearby kitchen and eating while your feet stay submerged.

The legendary age of Akinomiya adds a certain weight to the place. According to local history, the springs were known here for twelve hundred years, and the Akita Clan formally recognized them during the Edo period. The writer Saneatsu Mushanokoji visited and wrote about the valley in the early twentieth century, which elevated the springs' reputation among literary travelers. None of this is much advertised. The village does not push its history, it just continues doing what it has done for a very long time, heating water and letting people sit in it.