Shichigashuku Onsen

Shichigashuku Onsen is a remote mountain hot spring in Shichigashuku town in the Katta district of Miyagi Prefecture in the Tōhoku region, a sparsely populated forested highland at the border of Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures where siliceous geothermal waters from the volcanic Zaō Quasi-National Park zone emerge in the cedar and beech forests of the Ōu Mountain Range. The Shichigashuku area is centered on the Shichigashuku Lake reservoir, surrounded by forested hills, and is best known as the entry point for the ascent of the Zaō volcanic complex, whose famous Okama crater lake changes color between cobalt blue, emerald green, and milky white with the seasons due to volcanic gas dissolving in the acidic caldera water. The siliceous onsen of Shichigashuku offers a tranquil mountain bathing experience at the gateway to one of Tōhoku's most spectacular volcanic landscapes, where the color-changing crater lake and snow monsters (juhyō) of winter Zaō create one of Japan's most extraordinary high-altitude volcanic environments.