November 19 – 21 2024, Japan. We took the 20 minute shuttle from Hatch-no-Yu to the parking lot, then waited almost an hour for the bus, then another 2 hour trip to Kinugawaonsen Station. On the way we stopped at a general store, and the owner was very kind and helped me find dried persimmons. I asked him whether he ever saw bears and he laughed, saying he’d just seen a baby bear climb a tree a few days prior. He struck me as one of the merriest people I’d met on the trip. Maybe living in a remote place far from the critical eye of others and conditioning helped.

We arrived back at the station, then waited for the train that would take us into Nagano Prefecture. We had a few more trains to take that day, one of which was so slow I thought I could walk faster. Finally, we arrived in Yamanochi. It was dark and we were hungry. We looked for a place to eat, and ended up buying onigiri, a triangular seaweed-wrapped white rice snack filled with savory ingredients like salmon or plum. I always picked salmon if they had it. We often ended up buying a salad and onigiri at a Family Mart. It was better than nothing.

Hotel Omadaka was a 30 minute walk from the train station. At this time of night, better to walk than wait for a bus. We were cranky and tired by the time we arrived. Shawn had walked one way, and I the other, but we both find our way there. It turned out they had an onsen, and after we dropped our things, we rushed up to use it while it was still open. I discovered that there was an outdoor onsen, not just the indoor one that smelled like chlorine. I was ecstatic. I much preferred the smell of fresh air and breeze on my skin. Back in the room, we laid out our things. The rooms were enormous. We had one for sleep, and another (separated by the traditional sliding doors) for eating and the like. The hotel clerk had told us they had a shuttle to the snow monkey park in the morning. We signed up before heading to bed.

The hotel served a buffet breakfast and made a good latte. We savored our food, and had enough time to enjoy it before hopping on the shuttle. When we were making our itinerary, I told Shawn one of my hopes was to see wild snow monkeys. I had fallen in love with Japanese macaques years before. Turns out snow monkeys are quite prevalent in Japan, numbering around 10,000. But there is a place in Yamanochi called Jigokudani Yaen-Koen (Jigokudani Monkey Park) or Hell’s Valley for the steamy springs and steep cliffs. Here wild Japanese macaques bathe in a dedicated hot spring, but only when sufficiently cold. That was the rub. We were here in November, and I wasn’t sure it would be cold enough to lure them down to the hot springs. Besides, fall was mating season, and a sign at the start of the trail warned that fall was an unpredictable time.

We were lucky. It was a cold day, in the high 30’s, and there was a good chance that the monkeys would make their way to the hot springs to warm up. I was walking along a beautiful forest path, down to the Yokoyu River and across from the hot spring inn called Jigokudani Hot Spring Korakukan. Suddenly I saw a monkey and a smaller one (presumably mother and young), sitting on the roof of the inn, grooming. Then I heard branches moving, and looked up to see a monkey in a tree about 10 feet from me, shaking it vigorously. Then it sat down on a branch and began bouncing up and down, rather violently. A few minutes later I heard a loud snap, and the monkey was gone. It had broken the branch and fallen on the ground. I was worried that it might be injured, but it landed in some bushes, so probably was okay.

I headed down to the inn, the owners of whom had built the snow monkey hot tub upriver so the macaques would stop bothering the guests who were using the inn’s hot pool. Apparently, the monkeys had been making use of that pool for some time before this solution had been conceived. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and realized a few monkeys were leaping on boulders and the cement wall around the inn’s pool. I was surprised at how fast they could move. The ones on the roof had been languid and slow, so I didn’t have a sense of what they were capable of.

I proceeded up the valley, and found the path to the main sight where the monkeys bathe on colder days. I paid my entrance fee, warmed up in the visitor’s center, which had a lot of good information about the natural history of the animals, and made my way past the viewing platform to the bridge next to the macaque hot tub. We were in luck. Over the next few hours, approximately 200 monkeys came down from the hillsides to partake of the hot water and eat the apples and barley that the park officials provided. I was surprised to see them feeding the monkeys. I asked about it, and they said it was the best way to guarantee that people could see them. True, but doesn’t it make them less wild? I guess it depends on the goal.

I saw so many different types of behavior. Females cradling their young. Monkeys swimming from one side of the tub to the other. The tub was more like a large pool, lined with boulders all around the edge. Some monkeys were just sitting along the edge, either inside or on a boulder. I also saw aggressive males tormenting other males and sometimes females in horrible ways. I was so agitated hearing the screaming of the oppressed that I almost intervened. Not that it would have done much good. Around 1pm, and again at 3pm, officials carried a large bucket of diced apples and barley, flinging the food on either side of the river away from where the monkeys were congregated. I think they wanted to disperse them a bit, and it worked. Liked a kind of pied piper, each official had a gaggle of monkeys trailing behind.

I would have stayed all day but my fingers had turned blue and I could barely move them. I have Raynaud’s syndrome, and it’s not a good idea to let them turn blue, as theoretically, one could lose them. It was more the pain of the cold that finally forced me to leave. I went to the visitor’s center to warm up, and read all the information I could on the monkeys. Then I headed back out for one more gander, and after about 20 minutes, started walking down the valley toward the ancient hot spring district called Shibu Onsen. I crossed the river by the inn, and enjoyed walking through the forest on the other side. At the very end of the road, I passed a temple called Otozan Onsenji. Curious, I walked around the grounds. It was founded in 1305 by Koganshi Renkokushi, a monk who first built a thatched hut on the location. It historically served as a stop for travelers, samurais, and poets visiting the hot springs for their healing properties. 

Situated at the edge of the historic hot spring town, the temple overlooks traditional inns and features a Shingen footbath, offering a peaceful stop for visitors exploring the 1,300-year-old hot spring district. That was not the only foot bath. Nearby, there were several others, and I marveled seeing a couple take off their shoes and sit on the wooden bench with feet dangling. I loved the narrow streets and old buildings in the district, and told Shawn about it when I got back to the hotel. Curious, he walked back with me, and we had a nice time investigating the area. There were many traditional wooden inns and we counted nine public baths. We found a nice shop, and admired how they had renovated an old building in a tasteful manner that kept the traditional lines. We saw onsen tamago (hot spring eggs) sitting in natural hot springs next to inns. This is a Japanese slow-cooked egg with a silky, custardy white and a creamy, jammy yolk, traditionally made by poaching eggs in the warm waters of volcanic hot springs. Water from the hot springs ran in a channel connecting all the buildings in the district. Marvelous!

We looked for a place to eat but didn’t find one, so went back to the hotel and ate at the onsite restaurant. Next day we had our sumptuous breakfast before preparing to depart. It had been a very brief visit, and I marked it down as yet another place to which I would love to return. The list was getting long.