Bathing in hot springs is an important part of Japanese life, a national tradition
A few yellow plastic basins for washing before immersion, a wooden changing room, and clothes can be left on rocks. That's all. Definitely not a luxury spa, but that's the charm, notes BBC.
Bathing in hot springs, called onsen here, has been an important part of Japanese life for over 1,000 years, a national tradition. People come to cleanse both body and soul. There are over 3,000 onsens to choose from. Sulfurous, saline, ferruginous, bubbling or still, these baths are fed directly from 25,000 geothermal springs, as Japan is an archipelago of active volcanism.
An onsen is both a refuge for solitary reflection and a public place where family members, friends, and neighbors shed their clothes to immerse together in steaming water and feel that primal sense of universal equality with which we are born.
Onsens vary by location (in large cities they are more like modern indoor spas; in caves on the ocean shore, the experience is entirely different), each with its own charm, but only one is in a truly exceptional location.
This spring is considered the most difficult to reach in Japan. It is called Takamagahara (literally "plain of high heaven," the heavenly realm in Shinto belief, home of celestial gods and divine ancestors) and is located in Chubu-Sangaku National Park.
Getting there takes two days on foot. A true pilgrimage for true fans of hot spring bathing. And there are plenty of such people in Japan—this onsen is very popular among "those in the know." To immerse in its waters, hikers and onsen enthusiasts cover 40 km through forests, climb steep slopes, and spend nights in mountain huts.
In short, the route is not for beginners—it is a real expedition requiring considerable physical fitness and readiness for the whims of mountain climate. The reward is a modest open-air bath among the mountains, filled with steaming, sulfur-scented water. The surrounding landscapes, minerals in the water, and layout are unique to each onsen, but they share one main thing: an inseparable connection with nature.
In today's urbanized world, it is no surprise that open-air baths, natural baths known as rotenburo, are extremely popular—for there, lying in mineral-rich water, you can gaze at the starry night sky and feel the refreshing breath of a sea or mountain breeze on your forehead.
Takamagahara is the pinnacle of such an experience: dozens of kilometers from civilization, this onsen is surrounded by alpine forest, and the silence is broken only by the sound of water.
To us, a four-day round-trip hike to a hot spring may seem excessive, but for Japanese, it is a centuries-old tradition. A fine example of when the journey itself equals the destination (if not surpasses it). Pilgrimages to this spring began in the Edo period, when the mountains surrounding Takamagahara were deified as manifestations of kami (spiritual entities, deities in Shinto).
I confess, I am a big fan of onsens, and this was not my first trip to hot springs, but it was the most strenuous of all.
My first onsen was one winter on the island of Hokkaido, where my friends and I spent hours immersed in water, not wanting to talk or think about the problems we had left in another world. That's when I realized I was forever converted to this "bathing religion."
Five years have passed since then. Autumn came, and it seemed to me that a hiking trip into the mountains would be a great start to a new season of onsen adventures.
Already imagining the slopes of distant mountains, the silence and solitude (how different from my noisy Tokyo neighborhood!), late in the evening I boarded a bullet train to Toyama, and then, in the morning, another two hours by bus to the start of the trail near the village of Oritate.
My travel partner and I had been on the trail only a few minutes but quickly understood where this narrow path got its fearsome reputation. Up and down, over tangled roots, over rocks. Struggling not to fall behind, I held on with all my might (though at times it seemed with my last strength). At least we, people from the Western world, were constantly encouraged by local passersby with cries of "Konnichiwa!" and sometimes "Hello!"
We climbed higher, the hills below wrapped in fog, adding the necessary touches to our isolation from the world (mobile phone service no longer worked). The rocky uphill trail soon turned into wooden planks protecting the magnificent carpet of alpine flora from hikers' feet. These planks, trodden by thousands of feet, led us to our goal, now winding, now straightening the route. Among the grass, colorful flashes of the season's last alpine flowers delighted the eye.
These were one of the last weekends before the winter closure of mountain huts, yamagoya, built here to shelter those heading to the onsen. Supplies of provisions are delivered once a month by helicopter to these huts, serviced by a small permanent staff. Tourists can stay overnight, have dinner and breakfast of home-cooked food.
These huts are the only sign of civilization along the way; here they will tell you the expected weather and, depending on that, advise how best to behave on the route. Here they make sure no tourist falls behind or gets lost. When we arrived at the first yamagoya on the way, we were treated to simple Nepalese curry. We filled our empty bottles with pure mountain water from a sputtering tap.
Our next hut, where we planned to spend the night (another 12 km down the trail), looked lopsided to us. Its owner assured us that despite its age and constant exposure to mountain weather, the hut was quite sturdy. And he knocked on its wooden panels. The floor of the room where we were to spend the night was covered with tatami mats with neatly folded blankets on them. Everything was simple. And there were already quite a few guests.
When we sat on the balcony overlooking the Kurobe River, I saw tireless tourists unpacking their fishing gear and then heading toward the water.
During dinner, guests passed each other steaming bowls of rice and crispy tempura. Soup was ladled from a common tureen, and tea was served at the end. All of this was met with general enthusiasm and exclamations of "itadakimasu" (a rough equivalent of "bon appétit"). We chatted with neighbors sitting side by side, the traditional "kampai!" ("cheers!") rang out, glasses of beer clinked with an international sound... Given where we were headed, everything was going as it should, communally.
The thing is, one of the pleasures of public baths and bathing places is the opportunity for close bonding with friends, family members, or colleagues. Sitting in the water next to each other, bathers can shed the hierarchical ties of Japanese culture and converse freely in the steaming water of a hot spring. When you sit naked in the water, all barriers break down and new bonds are formed that would be impossible without the intimacy of a shared bath. This is called "hadaka no tsukiai" ("naked relationships," "naked communion").
When everyone is naked, everyone is equal. Onsen etiquette soon becomes second nature – from removing shoes to rinsing off (before entering the communal pool) at individual washing stations. These rituals seem to push you further away from the dreary routine and cleanse the body and soul.
In the morning, we woke up before sunrise and had breakfast together with all the guests of our wooden lodge. We were offered rice with salted plums, soup, and an omelet. After breakfast, thanking the hosts, we set off again.
Walking along a path laid with wooden planks, jumping over broken planks, we finally reached the Kumano-daira plateau, known for its views of distant mountain peaks. Now the trail was rocky. Making another turn, we encountered a pair of elderly tourists carefully reaching their hands through a fence along the trail. "Blueberries!" they said, pointing at the berries.
Then they told us they hike the Japanese Alps every year and giggled when they heard me say the route was difficult. They have been hiking these mountains since they were 10 years old. Once they climbed Everest and K2 (the second highest peak in the world, 8611 m) together. They wished us well and enjoyment of the onsen. Then our paths diverged.
Climbing endless steps and crossing narrow bridges, we finally arrived at the last hut on the trail. Takamagahara was already nearby. We dropped our backpacks and rushed down the uneven path to the famous hot spring. The walk took another 20 minutes, but we were driven by the desire to finally get into the water. We were greeted by the smell of sulfur, dear to the heart of every onsen fan.
Two of Takamagahara's three pools (men's and women's) were covered with bamboo canopies, while the third, mixed-gender pool was open to wind and rain, but offered views of the mountains. Until the 19th century, mixed bathing of men and women was common in Japan (according to other sources, until 1945), and in some provincial onsens this tradition continues to this day.
When we arrived at the hot spring, two naked elderly people were already sitting in the mixed pool. I immediately saw the entrance to the women's pool, but lingered to talk with the bathers, and one of them admitted he had "onsenmania." According to him, he had walked for eight days through the mountains to Takamagahara from Gifu Prefecture. When we asked what made him undertake such long treks, he asked in return, extending his hand toward the surrounding mountains: "What could be better than this?"
My companion joined his new friends, and I went to the women's bath. It turned out to be surrounded by stones along the perimeter, with a wooden changing booth nearby. I was completely alone, secluded from the other bathers but open to the trees and mountains.
I stepped into the translucent water, and the long hours of hiking instantly disappeared, dissolved, forgotten in the face of the distant mountain peaks. I sank deeper, and the water covered my shoulders.
Before this trip, I thought that being "one with nature" meant, generally, being alone in nature. And since I had never visited any of the remaining provincial "konyoku" (mixed-gender pool – translator's note), I had never considered the possibility of such bathing. But now my shoulders relaxed in the hot water, and I remembered the Japanese phrase "kacho fugeki." Literally translated as "flower, bird, wind, moon," it means the importance of immersing oneself in the beauty of nature to better understand oneself.
I recalled the numerous moments of "naked communion" I had experienced in my life in women's baths, I thought about what an ancient Japanese tradition shared baths are, and... I hesitantly left the women's bath and cast a farewell glance at my towel.
Quickly rinsing myself with a yellow basin, I joined the other bathers – and that's when I understood the essence of the bliss of shared bathing in the abode of the heavenly gods.