Tripwolf Blog

If you love bathing in Japan’s beautiful hot springs, you’re not alone. Welcome to Yamanouchi Town; famous for the monkeys who’ve made a habit of taking refuge from the biting cold by basking in the region’s naturally hot waters.

Japanese Macaques – popularly known as “snow monkeys” - are indigenous to Japan. Red-faced, squat, and covered with thick tan fur, they fight, forage, and soak in Yamanouchi’s Jigokudani Monkey Park. Yamanouchi itself is located in mountainous Nagano Prefecture. More than a dozen hot springs bubble here, but Yudanaka and Shibu springs are the best known. Yudanaka can be reached by train or bus from Nagano Station in 45 minutes, offering connecting buses to Shibu that take 5 minutes. Jigokudani Monkey Park is 6 kilometers from Yudanaka Station, but once there, explore the hot springs yourself before paying your respects to the monkeys.

Jigokudani Monkey Park may be reached from Yudanaka or Shibu by bus, taxi, car, or Snow Monkey mini bus. Alternatively, it’s a good hour’s walk from Shibu. It is particularly beautiful during a snowfall, but a hike through its lush forestation would be beautiful any time of year.

It’s an invigorating trek from the mouth of Jigokudani Monkey Park to the monkeys themselves, and the journey feels all the more rewarding when you first lock eyes with a shrewd-faced park dweller. They careen down the mountains, scurry up trees, plod by in groups or enjoy a ride to the large, rocky pool on their mother’s back as the hot steam swirls through the air like mist. Strikingly, the presence of the invading humans barely seems to register; it’s as if we aren’t there as they slide into the water and close their eyes with bliss.

They paddle. They doze. They pick the nits out of each others’ fur. It’s a beauty parlor where the regulars have been coming for so long, they barely need to say a word. It might be a cold winter out here, but in their bath they’re as toasty as can be. Suddenly, nothing in the world seems better than a good, hot soak and it’s back to the human springs to indulge. Monkey see, monkey do.