Yabuhara Onsen

Yabuhara Onsen is a mountain thermal facility in the Kiso district of Nagano Prefecture, set in the deeply forested Kiso Valley where the ancient Nakasendo highway wound through some of Japan's most magnificent sugi (Japanese cedar) and hinoki (Japanese cypress) forests, their giant trunks harvested for over eight centuries to build the great shrines and temples of the imperial heartland. The siliceous mineral waters provide warm, restorative immersion for travelers exploring the Kiso Valley's famous post towns—Narai, Tsumago, and Magome—whose Edo-period streetscapes survive almost unchanged along a cultural route that traces one of Japan's great premodern travel corridors through the mountains between Nagano and Gifu. The Yabuhara Pass, the surrounding old-growth Kiso cypress forests, and the mountain streams of the Nakatsu River valley give this highland onsen a setting of primeval Japanese forest grandeur that has drawn contemplative travelers since the age of samurai and pilgrimage.