Morita Onsen

Morita Onsen lies in the Ochi district of Kochi Prefecture, a highland zone in the western reaches of the prefecture where the Niyodo River and its tributaries drain the slopes of the Shikoku mountains in streams of exceptional clarity, their turquoise and emerald waters creating what photographers have described as some of the most beautiful river scenery in all of Japan. The Ochi area's remote mountain character — positioned toward the Ehime border where the Shikoku highlands form their most rugged terrain — has preserved traditional forestry communities and the unhurried rhythms of mountain village life that become increasingly rare as the same rail and road connections that enable access also accelerate depopulation. The onsen's siliceous geothermal waters, rising through the ancient metamorphic and granitic rocks of the Shikoku massif, provide deeply restorative thermal bathing in a highland setting where the mineral character of the spring reflects the deep geological time of the rocks through which it ascends.